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Dates: 2026-10-01T16:00:00, 2026-10-06T16:00:00
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The Urban Jungle
Human Footprint The Urban Jungle Season 1
Episode 5 of Human Footprint (Season 1) - Released: 2023-08-02 - Duration: 00:54:41
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Description
Shane explores three thriving urban species and envisions a wilder future for our cities.
Transcript
Shane, voice-over: Once upon a time, the Lenape called this place “Manahatta.”
A land of densely forested hills and slow-flowing streams… …it was, as Henry Hudson wrote in 1609, “as pleasant a land as one need tread upon.”
Today, all that remains of that place is the ground I’m standing on.
Rakim: If you was born in New York City Let me year you say, “You know that” Crowd: You know that!
In just a few hundred years, we cut down the forests, rerouted the streams, and leveled the hills.
In their place, we constructed a labyrinth of tunnels and pipes beneath a grid of asphalt streets lined with towers of concrete, glass, and steel.
In the blink of an eye, “Manahatta” became Manhattan.
Nas: Yeah, yeah Nas: Yo, black it’s time word?
Today, half of all humans– more than 4 billion people– live in cities.
But they’re not just a place to live.
Cities are a new ecosystem spreading across our planet.
One made by us, for us.
So how is this purpose-built human habitat treating us?
And what will it take to keep these urban jungles wild?
Nas: To the New York state of mind [Horns honking] Welcome to the Age of Humans… where one species can change everything and what we do reveals who we truly are.
This is “Human Footprint.”
The idyllic Manhattan of yesteryear was shaped by beavers, hydrological engineers whose vast earthworks transformed the entire ecosystem.
We humans alter the landscape, too.
We just do it bigger.
Humans have been called the ultimate ecosystem engineers.
And here in New York City, our talents are on full display.
Chorus: In Napoli where love is king When boy meets girl Simmering beneath this iconic skyline is a melting pot of more than 8 million people who speak 200 different languages and eat at over 1,400 pizzerias.
Man: As a New Yorker, I always lean towards pepperoni.
Shane: I can respect that.
Shane, voice-over: Bobby Corrigan is one of those 8 million New Yorkers.
He loves everything about this place: a good slice of pepperoni, the city lights, and, oh, yeah…rats.
In college, I had to save money, so I took a job as an exterminator.
They put me in the sewers right away… and I thought, “Oh, this is cool.”
Literally working your way from the bottom up.
Exactly.
Shane, voice-over: Bobby spends his free time writing poetry on the street, but by day, he’s a world-renowned urban rodentologist.
Are rats the scourge that people make them out to be?
I admire them.
I respect them.
However, they live in dirty areas.
Shane, voice-over: And, uh, that dirt got cooties.
It’s viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoans.
55 different diseases.
55?
Wow.
OK. And think of the plague, Shane.
You know, I mean, 25 million people go down with the black rat and their fleas.
Yeah.
Shane, voice-over: No place needs Bobby’s expertise more than New York, where it seems like rats are pretty much everywhere.
Here we are, sitting at a restaurant.
If that door over there is not pest proof into the pizza shop, across the kitchen counter, and urinates and defecates and leaves a film, and then someone touches the film the next morning, and then, you know, boom.
This pizza’s tasting a little less good now.
Ha!
Yeah.
Shane, voice-over: It was time to walk off that pizza on what Bobby calls a rat safari.
We’re gonna cross over here, Shane.
There’s a park here.
Here we are, almost at the end of June.
You know, their breeding season is in full swing.
Love is in the air.
Love is totally in the air, and families are growing.
Narrator: We know that rats are the most prolific of all mammals.
A single pair of rats would become 360 million in the short space of 3 years.
As the sidewalks begin to deteriorate, the rats will move below the sidewalks for their burrows.
You’re literally sometimes walking right over the tops of the heads of rats.
Sometimes, rats will go right up the tree if there’s a bird nest up there.
They’re predacious on those birds.
Is the reason why you’re wearing the hard hat because a rat might jump out of the tree onto you, and is that something I need to worry about?
Actually, that would be cool if they would jump onto me.
I’d like that a lot.
[Laughs] Shane, voice-over: The longer rats live in our cities, the better they get at it… and the harder we try to keep them out.
Here we have something that’s very common: the bait box.
The rats will go inside that box and find the poison bait.
And 8, 9, 10 days later, they die.
Shane, voice-over: But no matter how much poison we throw at the problem, we’re also throwing rats a lifeline.
Bobby: The rats are gonna be where the food is easy to get to.
All they have to do– 50 feet away, right there.
Shane, voice-over: New York City has 25,000 restaurants– not counting the pizzerias– and millions of home chefs.
3 nights a week, every one of them puts their trash not in a dumpster, not in a can with a lid, but right on the curb.
Bobby: Food in a big city of high-density humans?
Extremely reliable.
So this becomes, like, basically the rat buffet.
It does.
Shane, voice-over: They say if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.
And rats…well, they made it.
But how did they get here in the first place?
[Squeaking] Man: If we want to know the story of rats in New York City, we have to know what were they doing before they got here.
Shane, voice-over: This is Jason Munshi-South.
He’s a biologist who loves New York City almost as much as he loves rats.
[Ships’ horns blare] When the brown rat made it here, it sort of hit the jackpot.
Shane, voice-over: The brown rat, or Rattus norvegicus, probably originated in East Asia, where it was first drawn to human settlements by agriculture.
But as people around the world moved into dense cities full of trash, human waste, and safe hiding places, rat populations soared.
Without meaning to, we built a rat paradise.
Narrator: Rats don’t have to go to much trouble to find homes because we provide these for them, made to order, everything but the welcome mat.
It’s like, “Oh.
There’s this massive free food here now, and all I gotta do is hang around these people.”
Shane, voice-over: At the height of European imperialism, rats were already entrenched in cities and ports across the Old World.
So when European explorers sailed west into the unknown, rats did what they’ve always done and came along.
Where we are now is where the Dutch bought the island or stole the island.
I put my money on stole, but go ahead.
But the original… Shane, voice-over: By the early 1900s, it wasn’t just white human settlers who’d colonized all of North America.
It was also rats.
But not all rat habitat is created equal.
I’m gonna show you some different pressures in different parts of the city.
OK. We’re gonna go get that New York City tour.
Yeah, let’s do it.
All right, awesome.
[Engine revving] [Woman singing indistinctly] Jason: Yeah, as you’re driving from Battery Park, where the rats first came in, up to here, you know, this is one of the great rat neighborhoods of the world.
[Shane laughs] Shane, voice-over: But if you keep rolling north, the whole vibe changes.
And Jason’s got the data to prove it.
Jason: We got basically about 70,000 points where rats have been identified.
And this is the outcome of the map, where the green areas are really good rat neighborhoods, like where we are right now, right about there, near Tompkins Square.
But then see this red area here south of Central Park?
-Uh-huh.
-That’s Midtown, where there isn’t a lot of residential.
The companies pay extra money to have the streets cleaned up.
And it seems to create this almost, like, dead zone for rats.
Shane, voice-over: Jason can predict the size of rat populations in different neighborhoods by looking at data on humans.
Jason: Areas that are highly residential and mixed commercial that have a lot of restaurants, super predictive of rats, not surprisingly.
And older neighborhoods with older buildings, they really like that.
Shane, voice-over: The places where rats have food to eat and places to hide are the places they thrive.
On the flip side, take those things away and the rats disappear, too.
It seems so simple.
And yet, somehow… Bobby: Go to any city around the world and it’s plagued with rats.
We are not winning this war.
Shane, voice-over: Rodenticides, or rat poisons, have become a go-to weapon in the war on rats.
But rats are becoming resistant, pushing people to switch up the formula and apply even more rodenticides to keep rat populations in check.
And it’s not just poisons.
Our campaign against rats has grown into a $3 billion-a-year effort, involving legions of people around the world.
We’ve even conscripted other species into the war effort.
[Indistinct chatter] All right.
So this is our service center.
Shane: It’s like the gym, playhouse, sauna, exercise room, all together.
OK. All together, all together.
Shane, voice-over: When Scott Mullaney and his wife Angie aren’t cruising down a scenic highway… [Revving] …they’re training little dogs to do a big job.
[Engine revs, tires squeal] Instead of poison or traps, their company uses dogs to kill rats.
It’s actually nothing new.
As cities grew bigger and denser in the 19th century, rat populations exploded, and people created whole new dog breeds just to kill them.
We’ve worked them on top of 12-story buildings.
We’ve worked them in supermarkets.
We’ve worked them on airplanes.
We’ve worked them on trains, on trains, planes, and automobiles.
I mean, really, any environment you can think of.
Shane, voice-over: Over the years, Scott and Angie’s small team has killed more than 30,000 rats.
Scott: All right, you’re gonna leash up.
Here ya go, kid.
There ya go.
Dogs always give 100%.
They just love what they do.
We’re just gonna finish up so we can close up and go.
Last but not least.
[Engine starts, revs] [Distant siren] [Squeaking] OK, guys, so what we’re gonna do is, we’re just gonna take the leashes off the dogs.
I want to start right over here.
And you can see his kinetic energy.
He just– he’s on point right now.
He knows what the deal is.
Take the leash off and unleash them now.
Shane: It’s game time.
Scott: OK, we got something over here!
[Growling] Angie: Wooo!
Shane: Wow!
Scott: Good job.
This is bananas.
Shane, voice-over: It looks like chaos, but this is actually highly coordinated.
The dogs find the rats with their keen noses.
The handlers move dumpsters and pallets to expose them, and the dogs finish the job.
Yep.
Inside the bait box.
Shane, voice-over: Oh, and the hockey sticks?
Those are for cutting off escape routes.
Angie: Wooo!
Ohh!
Shane, voice-over: The dogs look like they’re having a blast.
The rats?
Well, not so much.
Scott: It’s still alive.
Hold on for a second.
Shane: Oh, my God!
Angie: Hey!
Scott: Yep.
Yeah, just make sure that nothing takes off the other way.
Angie: Good job, guys!
Scott: OK, we’ve got something over here, I think.
[Soft crunching] There are things that I have seen that I cannot unsee, and I will be having a whole different kind of nightmare from now on.
[Both laugh] What do you think our situation with rats says about us?
I think it’s pathetic.
As long as human beings continue with their sanita– poor sanitation habits, OK, and their lack of concern, we will never get rid of rats.
They’re here to stay.
Shane, voice-over: When people come together to live in cities, we create the perfect environment for rats.
They’ve been living with us for centuries.
When European settlers brought them to the New World, rats just had to keep doing what they were best at to thrive here, too.
But further south, in the Caribbean, another species is evolving before our very eyes to fit into an ever-more-urbanized world.
[Horn blares] Juan Ponce De Leon founded the settlement that became San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1508, making it one of the oldest colonial cities in the Americas.
500 years later, that tiny colony has grown into the third-largest city in the Caribbean Islands.
But amazingly, you can still see native wildlife here.
If you walk through the city, you’ll just see them on everything.
Shane, voice-over: Kristin Winchell is an expert in urban evolution.
She studies lizards called anoles, which live all over the American tropics.
For Kristin, anoles aren’t just a scientific inspiration.
They’re also her artistic muse.
[Foamer sputtering] So for you, I guess first of all, what is the greatest animal, and why is it anoles?
Ha ha!
I don’t know.
They’re just fantastic, little critters.
They’re so expressive and so charismatic.
And, I mean, they’re also great for scientific study.
Shane, voice-over: If you can’t tell, I’m a big anole fan, too.
I used to catch them as a kid in South Carolina and I’ve been studying them since grad school.
In fact, Kristin and I actually work together on anole research here in Puerto Rico.
So of all the places to study these lizards, why cities?
But I feel like most people, they’re like, “OK, I want to study them, like, in forests,” and things like that.
You decided to go study them in the city.
It was because I was looking for a species that might be adapting to urban environments.
I came across anoles and started reading about their rich evolutionary history and rapid change after you modify the environment.
Shane, voice-over: Anoles might seem like unlikely science heroes, but biologists have been studying them for decades and published literally thousands of papers on them.
There are more than 400 species of anoles that live throughout the Caribbean, Central and South America, and the Southeastern U.S. And I just had this moment where I was like, “If this is happening, it’s in these guys.”
Shane, voice-over: Once you know what you’re looking for, anole adaptations can be easy to spot.
You see, species that live in different habitats have different traits: big toe pads that help them stick to leaves in the treetops; long legs that allow them to run fast on the ground; short legs that help them climb without falling on the tiniest twigs; and so on.
Kristin’s question was, which of these traits, if any, would help anoles survive in the city?
Kristin: All right, let’s find some lizards.
Shane, voice-over: Kristin and I study the Puerto Rican crested anole.
Step one is to find out whether urban and forest anoles are different from one another.
Kristin: Say it, and the lizard gods will deliver.
Yeah, there’s a female right there.
Shane, voice-over: So we hit the streets to catch some lizards.
Kristin: Oh, she’s squirrely.
Shane: You’re too slow, K. Stop embarrassing yourself on TV.
I had one and then I let–yeah, OK.
Thanks, Shane.
Ha ha ha ha!
That’s real nice.
Invite me on your show and then make fun of me.
Shane: Ha ha ha ha!
Shane, voice-over: Catching anoles is a delicate scientific process involving a fishing pole and some string.
Luckily, I came prepared… maybe a little too prepared.
Who comes out catching anoles in flip-flops?
This is how you catch urban anoles!
You don’t need those big boots.
[Laughs] You go out in your hiking boots and your field clothes, well, you’re gonna get a lot of looks.
You dress casual like you’re going out on– for a little walk, even bring a little boom box with you.
That helps a lot, ’cause no one walks around doing sketchy stuff listening to reggaeton.
Kristin: Got him first.
Shane: Ha ha ha!
Hey, bud.
We measure with a digital X-ray the–all the bones in the body.
And you can see that they have these enlarged toe pads on the fore and the hind feet.
And so if you were to zoom way in on those, you’d be able to see these tiny scales, and those let the lizards cling to the smooth surfaces.
Shane: So for the Puerto Rican crested anole, what did you find?
One of my initial findings was that in the city, the lizards had longer limbs relative to their body length, larger toe pads with more of these specialized scales on the toe pads.
OK. Shane, voice-over: These are exactly the kinds of adaptations you might expect to see in cities, based on what we already know about anoles living elsewhere.
Kristin: They’re clinging to things like glass and metal and even painted concrete, which is a lot smoother than anything you find in the forest.
And so there’s kind of this combined selective pressure on toe pads, making them able to cling better, and limb length, making them able to navigate the structural environment better.
OK. Shane, voice-over: The urban lizards were different, but the real test was whether they could actually outperform their forest-dwelling counterparts when facing a uniquely urban challenge.
So I set up a lizard racetrack, and I fitted the racetrack with different surfaces.
One was tree bark, one was metal, like fence post metal, and then one was painted concrete.
And then I took high-speed video of these lizards racing up the racetracks.
And what I found was– or what I expected, rather, I should start there, is that the urban lizards would be able to run faster on the concrete and the metal and the urban substrates.
Those are the environments that they were living in.
Yeah, exactly.
And so they’d be better at doing that than the forest lizards.
What I found, though, was that the urban lizard’s just faster overall.
On anything.
On anything.
Even, like, bark and stuff that’s in forests.
Yeah, even bark, no matter what angle, no matter what structure we put on the track surface, they were faster.
They’re just hot rods.
Mm-hmm.
Shane, voice-over: In grad school, I studied how anoles in Texas– where the Polar Vortex causes rare but intense cold snaps– were adapting to the cold.
When I found out about Kristin’s work in cities, I realized her urban anoles could be facing a different kind of extreme.
Kristin: When I came down and tried out this big idea of “are anoles adapting to cities,” one of the things that I measured was body temperature and air temperature.
Shane, voice-over: Cities create what scientists call “urban heat islands,” areas with much hotter temperatures than the surrounding landscape.
So a few years ago, Kristin and I decided to find out how urban and forest anoles responded to extreme heat.
Sure enough, urban anoles could take the heat better than forest anoles, and we even found a few of the genes that affect heat tolerance.
These adaptations aren’t unique to any one city.
We found the same differences between urban and forest anoles again and again, all over Puerto Rico.
We can think of cities as the big Petri dishes that are replicated on a much larger scale.
Shane, voice-over: No two cities are exactly alike.
But for anoles, all cities have some things in common.
To survive on the streets, crested anoles evolved longer legs, bigger toe pads, and better heat tolerance than their forest relatives.
And it happened fast.
Some of our urban study locations have only been cities for 30 years.
That’s evolution in overdrive, even in lizard time.
So is this a feel-good story of animal adaptability?
Kristin: I think it’s a big mistake for us to think that all animals are gonna be able to adapt their way out of this.
We still are going to lose a lot of species as urbanization progresses.
OK. Shane, voice-over: Only two of Puerto Rico’s 10 anole species are found in cities, and just one, the crested anole, is really thriving.
So yes, some species can adapt, but the ones that don’t get squeezed out.
Kristin: I mean, that’s another reason why we should be studying the plants and animals that are doing well here, so that we can maybe engineer cities to be a little more favorable to wildlife.
Shane: So typically, when we think of ecosystems, right, we think of things like forests or deserts.
Should we consider cities as ecosystems as well?
Yes, absolutely.
And we should consider them as distinct ecosystems, just like we do all those others.
Shane, voice-over: Some folks aren’t as comfortable as Kristin with calling cities ecosystems.
But the more I learn about urban biology, the harder I find it to think of them as anything else.
Still, San Juan is no Serengeti.
For one thing, I don’t see any big predators in the streets.
But in major U.S. cities, that’s beginning to change.
With the second-highest population density in the U.S., right after New York City, San Francisco doesn’t seem like the ideal place for a large, wild predator.
But coyotes are full of surprises.
Just ask Officer Stephanie Pone.
One of the many things that I really love about this job is that every single day is a surprise.
Yeah.
It’s different.
There’s never a shortage of ways for animals to get themselves into conundrums.
OK. Nate Rose: Don’t you ever come up out the cracks And try to tell me how to get it Shane, voice-over: Stephanie’s sopapillas are the stuff of legend.
Rose: Spending any time just talking with me Shane: When she isn’t practicing her culinary craft, Stephanie patrols the streets for San Francisco’s Department of Animal Care and Control.
Rose: Tell me how to get it poppin’ really Stephanie: The most succinct way to describe it is that we are responsible for public safety as it relates to animals.
One time, I had a coyote call at Fisherman’s Wharf where the coyote was just chilling but being kind of a weirdo.
And I tried to approach to see if maybe there was something wrong, and the coyote got so scared that it jumped into the bay.
Oh, wow.
And then I had to do a boat rescue to rescue the coyote out of the bay.
And I was like, if I had just stayed out of it, the coyote would’ve been fine.
So it wasn’t like, “You’ll never get me, copper!”
And then he jumps into the– I mean, maybe.
I wouldn’t blame him.
[Laughter] Shane, voice-over: Stephanie’s department gets quite a few calls about coyotes.
I get it.
There’s something about seeing a predator walking down your sidewalk that would be very alarming.
Shane, voice-over: Coyote sightings are becoming increasingly common here, and not just in the city’s green spaces.
We see a lot of coyotes here.
We get a lot of reports in this area, but also in the neighborhood, which is part of the issue.
Shane, voice-over: It’s rare that a coyote actually harms a human or pet.
Still, public opinion of these predators is… let’s just say mixed.
Just like our beautiful city, the response is very diverse.
We get people that on one end, love animals, but they treat them like dogs, and that is terrible for the coyotes and it’s terrible for public safety.
And then we have the complete other end, where people think that they have no business being here and that they should all be killed.
Most people are somewhere in the middle.
Speaking as myself and not as a representative of the city, I’m quite fond of them.
I think it’s magical.
I never get tired of seeing them.
I also am a dog owner, and I have a teeny-tiny little dog who would be the perfect size for a coyote snack.
Shane, voice-over: For many people, it’s fear for their pets that tips the scales against coyotes.
It was 2015 when we started having coyote attacks.
Shane, voice-over: Karin Hu has lived in this neighborhood for 30 years.
I understand why people want coyotes in the city.
We love to look at wildlife, you know?
Maybe teaching people to appreciate the other types of, you know, things we have, like…
This last winter, I saw over 25 species of mushrooms.
I mean, that’s fascinating!
Shane, voice-over: When Karin isn’t teaching a course on psychoactive drugs at the local university, she’s out walking her dog.
And where coyotes are concerned, Karin’s vote is a “no.”
At least, not in her neighborhood.
Is your main concern the safety of your dog, or do you have other concerns as well?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, it’s– It’s all–OK.
If I didn’t have little dogs, I wouldn’t– this wouldn’t be my issue at all.
How do you go about deciding what belongs and what doesn’t belong?
It’s all values.
So my pets, the small dogs in this neighborhood, the cats in the neighborhood, are very high value.
And, yeah, there is value to having, you know, wildlife like coyotes around, but that’s a lower value, as soon as you start being a risk to our family members.
Some people feel uncomfortable and they try to, like, make a rationalization.
I just say, “No, that’s how we are.”
It just is what it is.
Yeah, we’re speciesists, you know?
We value some species more than others.
OK. Shane, voice-over: Historically, we’ve never valued coyotes much in the U.S. To this day, we kill almost half a million of them every year.
But it doesn’t seem to faze them.
Today, coyotes inhabit more of the continent than ever, including thriving populations in major cities.
So researchers want to know, what’s the secret sauce?
Why are coyotes so good at living in the habitat we’ve built for ourselves?
Woman: A big part of what I’ve done is walk around the city looking for coyote scat.
Scat, which is poop, just to be clear.
It is poop, yep.
OK. When I had you to myself Shane, voice-over: This is Tali Caspi.
If she isn’t playing one of my all-time favorite tunes on her upright bass, you might find her scouring the sidewalks for scientific treasure.
You ever have somebody walk by and just look at you like you’re an absolute maniac?
All the time, but actually, San Francisco is full of weird people.
So a lot of people just walk by and they’re just like– Makes sense.
Normal day, yeah.
Sometimes, you just gotta pick up some poop.
Totally, but when I do have those conversations with people, what’s really cool about it is everyone has something to share or contribute.
Yeah.
It’s pretty hard to be a resident of this city and not have had some kind of interaction or story with an urban coyote.
It’s so foggy.
Ha ha!
At this point, I’ve walked around 950 kilometers of urban trails in the city over the span of two years– Your Fitbit must be lighting up!
Tali: Oh yeah, it is.
Basically walking around, trying to find signs of coyote activity to help me find scat that I then pick up and bring into the lab.
And speaking of the devil… Shane: It’s coyote poop!
Tali: Fresh coyote scat right here.
Shane, voice-over: In the last two years, Tali has collected more than 1,300 scat samples.
In the scat are clues about the urban lifestyle of coyotes.
Everything they eat leaves trace evidence behind in the form of DNA.
It’s the DNA of the coyote, but then everything that the coyote ate as well.
Can you tell from the work that you’ve done, you know, like, how much cat DNA or, you know, Chihuahua DNA is in a coyote poop?
Yeah, so unfortunately, I can’t tell how much Chihuahua DNA is in a coyote poop, because coyotes and dogs are actually pretty similar, but I’ve definitely found some cat reads in the scat, but it is by no means the majority or most significant component of their diet.
OK.
The parts of their diet that have come out thus far as sort of the biggest contributors are pocket gophers, pigeons are pretty common, and then these livestock breeds.
so cow, chicken and turkey, pig.
And these are obviously not animals that the coyotes are hunting in San Francisco.
God, I hope not.
Yeah, these are either foods that people are giving to the coyotes or are sort of foraged from garbage bins, from trash, or from cat food and dog food that people leave out.
OK. Shane, voice-over: So coyotes are doing some hunting in the city, but like the rats I met in New York, they’re also making use of what we leave behind.
It may just be that city life is easy living if you’re a coyote.
From somebody who has been studying these animals, what is your take on coyotes in the city?
They’re here.
They’ve been here.
And they’re going to stay here.
Let’s say, tomorrow I could snap my fingers and take all of the coyotes out of the city.
They’d come back, because in all the surrounding areas, there are so many coyotes ready to just colonize an open territory.
The best thing we can do is think about coexistence with coyotes and how can we coexist with them as neighbors in our cities.
Shane, voice-over: That can be hard, because we build cities for ourselves.
These places are supposed to be for us, but coyotes shatter that illusion.
Maybe that’s why so many people have strong feelings about them, both negative and positive.
[Howling] Man: I love them to death.
I think they’re– they–yeah.
They are such a fantastic species.
Yeah.
They give us so many lessons.
Mm.
Shane, voice-over: Meet my friend Chris Schell.
This man can grill up a mouth-watering rack of ribs.
He’s also a professor at UC Berkeley, where he studies how coyotes and other animals live in cities.
How do you go about studying coyotes in this kind of environment?
We use techniques that we use in traditional ecological studies.
Everything from camera traps to fecal transects to GPS collars on the animals.
Shane, voice-over: This camera trap is one of dozens that Chris and his team have placed to observe wildlife in the city.
Chris: So we want to try and put the camera in places where we know wildlife are likely going to be, even though we know people are in the general area.
So let’s go ahead and just go out and view out and see, OK, did we get anything that is for us noteworthy?
Now, we’re super biased.
We’re always thinking about the carnivores.
OK. Chris: And here I already see we got a gray fox.
Shane: Oh, yeah!
Chris: If we continue to scroll, more skunks, another person, more deer.
Man, it’s a higher density of animals than I would expect.
Like, this is just over the course of a few days.
Right.
Wow.
Shane, voice-over: Here in the lush Berkeley Hills, carnivores like foxes and coyotes flourish.
But cities aren’t monoliths.
Just down the hill in Emeryville, the habitat– if you want to call it that– doesn’t look as inviting.
Chris: There’s a lot of concrete here.
Mm-hmm.
As we’re driving through, I’m seeing more built structures.
I’m seeing less vegetation.
I’m seeing less ways for animals to get from point A to point B. Shane, voice-over: But Chris’ team set up a camera anyway…just to see.
Shane: Are you getting coyotes in as dense a number here as you would elsewhere in the city?
So no, we’re not.
And the only species we’ve really caught on that camera have been ground squirrels or raccoons.
OK. OK. And that’s it.
So a good chunk of the wildlife that we saw up at some of the other sites up in the hills, gray foxes, for instance, they aren’t here.
Shane, voice-over: Animals know good habitat when they see it, and wealthy neighborhoods can be brimming with the things wild species need– trees, water, safe places to hide.
Chris: So property values can positively correlate with the likelihood that you’re going to see a coyote or other wildlife species in an area.
And that’s called the luxury effect.
Oh, OK.
So urban species trying to live bougie, too, is what you’re saying?
Oh, yeah!
Right, they’re trying to make it work, like, “Oh, but this neighborhood over here, though?”
So many of the historical processes that have happened in cities… think residential segregation via redlining, or urban renewal programs that then led to displacement, gentrification also, leading to socioeconomic disparities in and across this urban landscape, right?
This entire landscape is constructed, and when we understand how its construction leads to amenities and disamenities therein, we start to understand that we aren’t the only organisms that are being affected by this.
Mm.
That history, right, you’re talking about things, the discrimination, racism, redlining.
Basically, what you’re saying is, more than social, more than economic, they’re tangibly biological.
Right.
Simply put, the past is present.
Shane, voice-over: The noise, the air pollution, the heat, the toxic byproducts of industry, the impacts of urban living hit harder in some places than others.
Chris: Even cities as close as San Francisco and the East Bay or Berkeley and Oakland are so separate from each other.
And the animals, they give us these lessons through how they move, through what they do, through what they eat.
Some organisms, like raccoons, for instance, if they eat too many human foods, develop diabetes.
They develop diabetes!
Oh, wow.
Right?
Just ’cause they’re there doesn’t mean that they’re doing well.
Yeah.
So does the way that animals interact with their environment in a city teach us anything new about how we exist in a city as a species?
They serve as the beacons.
The “bioindicators” is the term we often use.
They are the conduits to allow us to better understand that many of these disparities that hit communities of color, low-income communities really hard are also the same things that are destroying the natural world.
The policies that separate us from us are also those same policies that separate us from the natural world.
Shane, voice-over: Many animals living in our cities don’t know anything else.
So they learn to survive against all odds, even if they can’t really thrive.
It kind of makes me wonder: What if we humans are the same way?
We are impoverishing ourselves, and that’s just the hard truth, that we are hurting ourselves and we don’t know it.
Shane, voice-over: This is Peter Kahn.
When he isn’t serenading the wild on his homemade flute, he studies our species’ shifting relationship with nature.
Peter’s interest in cities dates back to the nineties, when he asked kids in Houston, Texas a couple of simple questions.
We just asked this kind of preliminary question, “Do you know what air pollution is?”
And they said, “Yeah, yeah,” all of them.
Then we asked the second question, which was, “Does Houston have air pollution?”
And the significant number of children went from, “Yes.
Yeah, I understand what air pollution is,” to “No, Houston doesn’t have air pollution,” which completely blew us away.
Because, at the time, Houston was the most polluted city in the United States.
How could these kids growing up in the most polluted city in the United States, how could they not know about that their city was polluted?
And that’s the start, for me, some 30 years ago, in thinking about this issue, about environmental generational amnesia.
That the children are coming of age, and they’re constructing a baseline of what normal is.
Shane, voice-over: That mouthful of a phrase, “environmental generational amnesia,” refers to the way that each generation grows up thinking that their experience of the world is normal.
So in our urbanizing world, the less nature we experience, the less we think we need.
With each generation, nature becomes smaller.
Wilderness becomes a city park and then a row of trees in a median and then…nothing at all.
And thanks to this so-called amnesia, most of us never notice.
Peter: I think we’re building urban prisons.
I think we’re imprisoning ourselves.
Shane, voice-over: Peter’s concerns are rooted in real data.
Depression and anxiety are more common in cities than outside them.
And some studies show that exposure to nature can help, not just with mental health, but physical health, too.
It reduces stress, reduces obesity, helps eyesight, reduces depression.
I mean, the list is on and on.
Can modern cities be transformed into something that allows us to sort of reconnect in that ancestral way with our environment while still having all of the functional components of a city?
Yeah.
There’s some marvelous parts of cities, and I think we both appreciate them so much.
And it’s the coming together of different groups and different energies, different knowledge.
The creativity is so amazing in cities.
We can make them better and we should make them better.
Yeah.
Um… but here’s the thing.
They can get a lot worse, and unless we push back, try to make them better, they will get worse.
Shane, voice-over: We haven’t reached “peak city” yet, not even close.
By 2050, 2/3 of us will live in urban areas.
So as cities continue to grow, how can we create a less dystopian urban future?
Halfway around the world, architects and urban planners are pushing back and reimagining what city living can be, for us and the rest of nature.
In every city I’ve ever lived in, green spaces felt like an escape.
They were in the city but not of the city.
Singapore is different.
Here, nature is never more than a few blocks away.
Everywhere you look, buildings are exploding with life.
[Rooster crows] It feels like a miracle.
Woman: Is it your first time in Singapore?
Shane: It is.
Man, this place, it’s– I’ve never seen anything like it.
It’s incredible.
Shane, voice-over: If you ask Pearl Chee, she’ll tell you it’s no miracle.
It’s all part of the plan.
Pearl: We are challenging ourselves as architects whether we can design better.
We are creating a lot of concrete buildings, it’s like a concrete jungle, but we really want to bring the jungle in.
Shane, voice-over: Pearl is the architect who designed the Kampung Admiralty, the building we’re standing in now.
Pearl: Our design concept, it’s a very unique combination.
We actually have elderly housing, public housing, combined with healthcare, which is a medical center, commercial and some social programs, and a food court, yeah.
Shane: Oh, wow.
So that’s why it’s not gated.
It’s very open.
Anybody can actually come in and use the facilities here.
Shane, voice-over: Singapore is the third most densely populated city in the world.
The entire country is an island with only 281 square miles of land, but 5.5 million people live here.
In a city this dense, you wouldn’t expect much room for nature.
But it’s like they say: where there’s a will, there’s a way.
And by will, I mean law.
Legislation enables it to happen.
The building took the land.
So we need to do replacement.
The legislation actually requires a building to give back 100% landscape.
Oh!
100% of the site footprint has to be replaced into the building.
Every square inch of, like, green space that you take up, you have to put back in…
Put back in, yeah.
into the building somehow.
Into the building.
Shane, voice-over: A few years after completing the building, Pearl’s firm surveyed the animal life in Kampung Admiralty’s gardens.
50 different species had moved in.
Pearl: The species in this building is higher than the species on the ground park.
Oh, really?
Yeah, which is right nearby.
So…
Wait, so there’s more species within this construction than in, like, a natural space of the same amount of greenery?
Yeah, correct.
That’s incredible.
Thinking about an entire city built like this, basically, you’re talking about reforestation and urbanization as sort of one and the same.
Correct.
[Crows] Shane, voice-over: This development is a microcosm of what’s happening all over Singapore.
It’s not just one building or designer or architecture firm.
The whole city is teeming with life.
Narrator: It’s hard to believe that not so long ago, war surged around it and even in it.
Singapore, cosmopolis of the East.
Malays, Chinese, Indians, and British have taken time by the forelock, and the shops and market stalls dazzle the eye and make our mouths water.
As you sort of, like, move around the city now, you know, do you, you know, like, do you go to places and you’re like, “Oh, this is my baby”?
Yeah, yeah.
All the time.
[Laughter] Shane, voice-over: Professor Cheong Koon Hean is a music lover and life-long Singaporean.
She’s also a legendary urban planner.
A lot of folks credit her with shaping Singapore’s singular urban landscape.
BAER: Raise a toast to the GOAT, yeah Cheong: This is one of my favorite neighborhood centers in a public housing estate.
Because in Singapore, 80% of the people live in public housing in estates like this.
Oh, wow.
In highly affordable housing.
Shane, voice-over: Kampung Admiralty, the building Pearl Chee designed, is public housing, too.
And these places are cush.
The apartments are modern and clean, the amenities are incredible, and most developments are a 10-minute or less walk from public transportation.
And, of course, everything is draped in greenery, from the street level to the tops of the skyscrapers.
Where I come from, when we say “public housing,” basically, like, we call it “the projects.”
And I was actually raised a lot in public housing.
And that public housing and this public housing are not the same thing.
Well, you can’t believe it when you come to Singapore today, but, say, about 60, 70 years ago, actually, Singapore was a nation of slums and squatters.
It was also polluted and lots of traffic congestion.
Shane, voice-over: When Singapore gained its sovereignty from Britain in 1959, it was a city of 1.5 million people and massive, unplanned sprawl.
Tens of thousands of people had no place to live.
So the newly elected government created the HDB, or Housing and Development Board.
Cheong: And within 5 years, the HDB, they already built 51,000 units of flats.
It started from very basic housing, but now, of course, the quality is a lot better, as you can see around you.
Yeah.
Shane, voice-over: And public housing is just the beginning.
Singapore is a very small city-state.
It’s actually only half the size of metropolitan London.
Oh, wow.
But we are a country.
We’re not just a city.
So everything you need about a country, whether it’s for water, power generation, ports, airports, plus housing, shops, offices, industry, all has to be built within this tiny island city-state.
And so biodiversity and ecological balance became really quite an important concept.
Now, as we developed the land, of course we start to lose space for planting.
So what did we do?
We decided to move the greenery upwards into the sky.
And so, what you did is you just created new space.
And suddenly, you bring back all the biodiversity.
Back in the States, urban areas and wildlife are sort of like oil and water.
They don’t mix very well.
But what you’ve done here is something very, very different.
Over the years, we moved from being a garden city to a city in the garden because we started to plant so extensively.
And in the last decade or so, we moved from a city in a garden to city in nature.
In a place where you have limited space and you have this growing population that there are two very sort of competing needs.
Shane, absolutely, there’s always competing needs, right?
So it’s really this very important balancing act of allocating the right amount of land for different uses to create this type of an environment.
Shane, voice-over: And who orchestrates this balancing act?
It’s the Singaporean government, with their comprehensive “Master Plan” for managing the city-state’s ongoing growth.
By centralizing the control of urban development, Singapore paves the way– you see what I did there– for projects that fuse function and form.
Cheong: If you look behind us, the Punggol Waterway is actually a man-made river.
We dammed up two rivers to become freshwater reservoirs.
Now, the engineers wanted to connect the two reservoirs with a pipe– very functional.
But then the architects and the planners say, “Why do a pipe?
Why don’t we make a river?”
And so, this river connected the two reservoirs to balance and optimize the storage of water, but at the same time, it became a leisure facility.
So Punggol has a nickname.
It’s the Venice of Singapore.
Oh, that’s amazing.
Because we brought in water, right?
It has its aesthetics, but everything also serves… Function, yes, a function.
a very specific function.
Even the Punggol Waterway, there’s a family of otters that have come back.
Oh, that’s incredible.
They live on the Punggol Waterway.
Shane, voice-over: Singapore challenges a lot of what I thought I knew about cities.
No one’s saying that we should all be like Singapore, or even that we could be.
This place is unique.
90% of Singapore’s land is publicly owned.
The government determines what gets built and where.
And with everyone sharing the same tiny island, by definition, they’re all in this together.
Most places don’t have all that.
But I’m not sure we need it to re-imagine what cities can be.
I think the thing that stands out to me about Singapore is the intentionality.
I’m not sure if this specific model can be applied anywhere or everywhere, but I think they’re doing things that I think other cities can learn from.
We have to get our act together to make cities effective.
Creativity, innovation, and that will to survive and to want to do well are very, very strong drivers.
That’s human beings, right?
That’s what we are.
Shane, voice-over: Cities might just be humankind’s most remarkable invention.
Because we thought we were building ourselves a place to live, but we were really creating a new ecosystem, a place where nature has to adapt to live alongside us and some of our urban neighbors are more welcome than others.
City living brings challenges– for us and all the species that share our urban spaces.
But we shouldn’t forget that cities can also help us flourish.
In Oakland, Chris said something that stuck with me.
We are a communal species.
So for folks to think, “Well, if you just get outside the city, you’ll be OK,” nah, nah, nah, it doesn’t work like that.
We need to be able to have connection.
Shane, voice-over: That’s why cities aren’t going anywhere and why we need to make them better.
With a little creativity and vision, they can deliver that connection– to each other and maybe to the rest of our incredible planet, too.
Human Footprint is available with PBS Passport and on Amazon Prime Video.
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Curbing Urban Sprawl - Why Better City Planning Could Mean Better Health
Duration: 00:15:16
Released: 2026
Series: Public Health On Call
About this episode: Recent research from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health finds that living in a compact metropolitan setting could yield more health benefits than living in a more sprawling suburban area. In this episode: the report’s lead researcher, Shima Hamidi, explains why this is the case and how communities can reshape infrastructure to foster mobility and connection. Guest: Shima Hamidi, PhD, MSc, is a Bloomberg Associate Professor of American Health in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering and director of the Center for Smart Transportation. Host: Stephanie Desmon, MA, is a former journalist, author, and the director of public relations and communications for the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs. Show links and related content: Sprawl Rankings Reveal Health Benefits and Cost Offsets in Compact, Connected U.S. County and Metro Areas—Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Mapping Urban Sprawl in the U.S.@bloombergamericanhealth via Instagram Associations between Urban Sprawl and Life Expectancy in the United States—International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health Relationship between urban sprawl and physical activity, obesity, and morbidity - update and refinement—Health & Place Transcript information: Looking for episode transcripts? Open our podcast on the Apple Podcasts app (desktop or mobile) or the Spotify mobile app to access an auto-generated transcript of any episode. Closed captioning is also available for every episode on our YouTube channel. Contact us: Have a question about something you heard? Looking for a transcript? Want to suggest a topic or guest? Contact us via email or visit our website. Follow us: @PublicHealthPod on Bluesky @PublicHealthPod on Instagram @JohnsHopkinsSPH on Facebook @PublicHealthOnCall on YouTube Here’s our RSS feed Note: These podcasts are a conversation between the participants, and do not represent the position of Johns Hopkins University.
Nsilo Berry on making buildings healthier
Duration: 00:45:57
Released: 2023
Series: Agents of Change in Environmental Justice
Nsilo Berry joins the Agents of Change in Environmental Justice podcast to discuss hidden toxics lurking in buildings and what sustainable construction looks like.
Transcript
Brian Bienkowski
All right, I am super happy to be joined by Nsilo Berry. Nsilo, how you doing today?
Nsilo Berry
I’m chillin’, man. Really good outside Portland here in Oregon’s pretty decent right now. And I don’t think it’s raining right now at the moment, i might say so. So, but the last few weeks have been kind of pouring. So I like the rain. So I’m kind of disappointed it’s not raining, actually.
Brian Bienkowski
Well, I drove home in in a snowstorm yesterday from west of where I live. And I’m the same I’m strange and that I like the bad weather. There’s something about it that does something to the mood. Well, speaking of, speaking of place, let’s let’s go way back to the beginning. So you’re not originally from Portland, you grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. So tell me about your upbringing and how you think it shaped you
Nsilo Berry
Yeah, great question. My parents, my mother specifically was in the military. So I did a lot of moving around. One of the other senior fellows, Lariah, she had a similar experience in her podcast talking about that. So for me, I kind of connected with that as well. So for me moving around, seeing different, a bunch of different places living with a bunch of different family, extended family in particular. But we started in St. Louis around 2000s, my mom got out of the military, if she had my brother in the late 90s, she took a job as a flight attendant. And so we kind of settled down there, it’s kind of being like our home base. So growing up in St. Louis was a really, really unique situation for me a really fun time kind of growing up African American middle class family. And so for us, it was really important about just kind of experience different things growing up. I was in Boy Scouts, became an Eagle Scout, went to public school, went the private school, had a chance to to be part of different liberal organizations grown up throughout the community. And so for me, St. Louis is really kind of the foundation for who I am today. A lot of my great friends still live there today. Fell in love with sports there too. And so for me, St. Louis has a special place in my heart. But really, you know, when I became a teen, I felt like I just kind of outgrew the place because in that in a way it is kind of small. And so once you kind of do everything there, I was looking out to the world and so living next to the airport was kind of this always “my head in the clouds” in a way type of thing, because I saw plants come and go. And so I was like, “you know, I’m gonna be on the next plane out of here when I have an opportunity to see the world for myself.”
Brian Bienkowski
I want to hear more about Eagle Scouts. Was this something that was just something that was part of your family did other people go through this and and did it open your eyes at all to the environment and nature?
Nsilo Berry
Yeah, my father he was in he was in Boy Scouts when he was growing up. But he had a bad train accident when he was little and he lost his legs. And so now he’s permanently disabled. But for him being part of just kind of that environment. And at the time, it was kind of just the young boys growing up together. So for me, Boy Scouts was a way to just experience the space around me and my community, but also to nature. So camping was a big part of that. So having a chance to go into different cabin reservations, explore the campsite, keeping them clean, of course, but also respecting the space in nature around you and also having an understanding of kind of like animals and environment and ecosystem too, also while learning different skills. Like for example, I remember through Boy Scouts, I had a chance to ride a horse. I don’t think I would have ever done that if it would have been for Boy Scouts or something like that, right? starting a fire, surviving, putting tents together. And for me Eagle Scouts is the highest rank of that too. And so that was just an opportunity for me to go grow outside of myself, but also challenging myself and also do with some of my great friends. They recently just had, I think the Eagle Scout organization just had their 50th anniversary. And so I had a chance in a book to talk about my experience, I got a book back from that. And one thing that was unique about kind of where I grew up is that all my closest friends, like three of my closest friends, all Black, all Eagle Scouts, which is really unique for that scenario, and the situation at the time in St. Louis. So thank you, my troop, troop 531. And then the leaders at the time to help me shape that and also my friends was incredibly invaluable experience I still talk about to the to this day that people ask about my resume, you know, when I bring it up, or when I talk about it.
Brian Bienkowski
That’s so cool. And I think I mistakenly call that Eagle Scout. So it’s Boy Scouts, but Eagle Scout is something that you reach
Nsilo Berry
Yeah, it’s that it’s the highest rank in Boy Scouts. So it’s like through all kinds of your merit badge collection, camping, being in leadership positions, but also kind of culminating in an Eagle Scout project. And so that project is then kind of encapsulate, encapsulate all the work that you’ve done over kind of the period of your scouting career. And then you do that project, you get it approved, then you talk about certain things. And so you got to do that before your 18s, like when you age out. And so I was able to do that, got my Eagle Scout, and then graduated high school, and then you know, went on to college, and so on and so forth.
Brian Bienkowski
I promise I’ll move on from this, but I’m fascinated. What was your project?
Nsilo Berry
yeah, it was a I worked at. So we have a there’s an eagle bird sanctuary in Missouri. And so they do a bunch of different projects with scouting, scouts and stuff like that. So I chose a project related to honeysuckle kind of extermination. Honeysuckle in Missouri at the time is an invasive species. So it sucks up the nutrients of local kind of ecology and wildlife in the area. And it makes it hard for other animals like deer to kind of eat the native plants that are responsible for it, and they can’t eat it fast enough, then fashion grows. And so honeysuckle getting to suck the nutrients out of all local plant life. And so for me, I chose that –I have this weird kind of masochistic thing where I got to do the hardest thing and challenge myself– And what’s all about layering, I guess, when it comes to sports and stuff like that. So I said, they said, Hey, we have this problem, honeysuckle, can you help us get rid of it? I said no problem. So I got a bunch of pals together, my friends and I people, my troop troop mates, we went together started pulling the honeysuckle out, put them on the palette. So they they they can be exterminator take it to another place, an exterminator burned, whatever the case may be. So we put all those out. And after that, they came back, I think there was another project that kind of ran concurrently with mine. And that was replaced with other more natural life species, plant-like species that were able to be then eaten and maintained by the local plant life and animal life there too. Another one, my friends build the bird cage at the bird sanctuary. So we have a lot of people that kind of just like involve ourselves within that space. And so super thankful to that organization and the people there at the bird sanctuary. And I’m really thankful for the opportunity too. I think I have like a plaque somewhere on a tree over there. But I haven’t been back in so long. I haven’t really like confirmed or anything like that, too. But really unique experience for that.
Brian Bienkowski
Yeah, that’s so cool. Thanks so much for sharing that. And it sounds like there was a lot of a lot of engagement with the environment and nature here. But this kind of leads into my next question is where did kind of science in the environment come into play during those early years?
Nsilo Berry
Yeah, like, and I don’t know, if you remember this, I don’t know if this is the St. Louis thing. But in the summer, this is back when West Nile virus was like a huge thing, right. And so they used to have these trucks, they used to go around spraying these chemicals throughout the neighborhoods. And it was to help maintain mosquito birth and help decline and helps prevent that from happening. But it always smells so nasty all the time. You knew when they were coming out, you didn’t want to be outside with your friends, when the vehicle come out. The vehicle didn’t care, they would just drive by you probably wave out I’m not thinking twice about because the same person doing the work every single day. But it had this really bad smell to it. And so I always thought about like, what does that like that can’t be good for you know, people coming inside, I know, my parents would tell me to come inside when that pressure would come outside. So I had this weird kind of, this weird kind of relationship with things like that happening in our neighborhood and thinking about these type of things. But the most I was growing up I knew about mold obviously, I knew about lead in water those type of things. But for me, that was kind of where that that fascination with the environment in the things came apart. My family has always been into respecting the where you where you go, where you come from, and leaving places better than where you found them, which also has to be a scout slogan, too, as well, we’re talking about the environment as well. And so those type of things kind of just reinforced kind of personal behaviors of mine. And when I think about the world, animals, and the environment around us when it comes to to care about these things that then extended through my education, and then ultimately into where we are now when we talk about environmental justice and housing and other sorts and also toxic materials, too. So that’s kind of where all those foundation things, the initial curiosity came into play but then, you know, formalized with, you know, formal education practice and also experiences and talking to people and so on and so forth.
Brian Bienkowski
Yeah, and you’ve been able to take these these early values and make a career out of it, which is very cool. And before we get to that, which we’re going to I want to know what is the defining moment or event that shaped your identity up to this point?
Nsilo Berry
Yeah, it’s it’s a big one. And I think that it kind of leads into the question we talked about, some of the work I did in Africa. And for me, that’s the biggest one. I had an opportunity when I was in college, undergraduate at Drexel University in Philadelphia, to travel to the Gambia, Western Africa, very small country in Africa. And so I had opportunity to work as a kind of biomedical engineer and in a program there through their Drexel University. And for me, you know, as an, as an African American person growing up in America, obviously, there’s you have the understanding of kind of like, think about it like point z, which is obviously being in America. So obviously, knowing that I’m an American here at this point. But point A being what is the beginning point of that? We know it’s historically Africa. But we but we don’t have any kind of like formal connection to that as as Black people here unless you kind of trace your lineage back through slavery, and so on, and so forth. And so for me having the opportunity to really go back to Africa and reconnect with kind of that part, knowing that, not necessarily specifically knowing what maybe what tribe or what kind of country that I emanate from, my family came from, but really just having this, this influence of understanding of some part of me feels connected to this continent in a certain way. And that will be one thing that, you know, for anybody who, who goes back to a place that they know that their family comes from, but especially a Black person going back to the continent, I think having the opportunity to really immerse yourself in the culture and the people around you is, was the biggest shapeshifting thing. I had a person tell me, he said, Hey, Nsilo, you look, I can show you a picture, you look just like one of my cousins here, right? And that’s me, I’ve, that’s the crazy thing I’ve ever heard, right? I’ve never, I’ve never really got that in the United States. But having somebody saying that, to me was just like this opportunity. Like you have people here that there is some lineage here of you that, you know, comes from this place here. And that, to me is the biggest, I think one of the biggest shapeshifting opportunities for myself, I turned 21 there. So it was a coming-of-age thing for me personally, to experience that in Africa. And so that has, to me, is the ultimately the biggest Shapeshifter when it comes to my identity, and thinking about Africa and talking about and supporting the economy, even to this day.
Brian Bienkowski
That’s so cool. And I know at the time you were working at the intersection of engineering, public health and environmental justice while you were down there. So can you tell us about the actual work while you were there, and any challenges working in a different country, and also any victories, any good things that came with the work?
Nsilo Berry
Yeah, a lot of the work involved, I worked with a group called Power Gambia and they’re a solar kind of working group. And they work with kind of with renewable energies. And so they have a claim that they invested in down there, where they have solar energy, really, to the clinic, because a lot of sun when it comes to kind of petrol fuel sources, they’re unreliable, they’re hard to get. And at the hospital, they can go to anytime. And so in a hospital, you obviously need functioning things in order to help with kind of the patients in in different things in the moment, so. So for me, they have these things called solar suitcases, and these are kind of like, like a smaller miniature version of solar power systems, where you can then connect them to different clinics. And so I had the opportunity with me, and another another woman named Mary, she was a journalist, but also did some nursing stuff down there, too. And so we traveled throughout these different clinics here and installed the solar suitcases in these different clinics. And throughout all different parts of Gambia traveled the whole, the whole country there. And for that, for that reason, there were people, doctors delivering children with kind of thing about like an old Nokia phone, with a flashlight in their mouth, delivering the child, you know, in the dark, right. And so these are kind of things that where they have the opportunity now to have the solar system where if the child did come at, you know, a inconvenient time like children do, especially when they’re being born, obviously, they had opportunities now to have the adequate equipment, the lighting sources to have say, hey, we can deliver shot in a safe environment, where we can then have the right tools to do what we have to do but also if you have to escalate the issue to another clinic, we have the ability to make that communication and say, Hey, we need to go to the bigger clinic in a closer neighborhood or closer community, so we can get the children what they need. So a lot of that work on that development type of things. And also just kind of fixing, you know, equipment throughout these different hospitals, a lot of people would ask you to do certain things for them. So leaving things again, better than what I found them, but also investing in these clinics for long term so that they can have things that they need, because it is hard to get these places. Like if you don’t have the proper four-by-four vehicle, a lot of places are hard to get to a lot of people use donkey cart, which is very, you know, when we’re talking about an emergency, just not economical and not viable. Or people use transportation, which is hard to get to as well. And then after that significant walking obviously, because the distances are just so vast on the continent, especially in Gambia too, even as a small place, a small country. So that’s what much of my work centered around that. I had a whole hospital also an opportunity to travel to different parts of the country, especially during the holidays and stuff like that, too. So, but again, very, very important. The victories part of that world, having just opportunity to meet different people, to get some of this equipment up as equipment was, is hand-me-down equipment, so things that hospitals don’t need anymore, they pass to the clinic, and a lot of times they’re broken, they’re not very viable. So I had to fix them and then had to send the information to the other people that are addresses, that are there, so they know how to fix it when I’m gone. And so those are type of things that I think for me ultimately the most frustrating thing because you know if you want to be you want to see people succeed, you give them the best chance to, that’s what, I think that’s what a great coach will always told me so you know when you’re good giving bad equipment and people coming to you don’t really see them, you don’t want to see them succeed. It’s just something that you know how no longer have to pay for, to maintain, so you’re passing that along with somebody else to deal with that, which to me, I think is completely unfair if you’re talking about kind of like helping people and giving people the best opportunity to be kind of successful in their own environment. So that’s the biggest challenge. But you know, everybody else around it knows kind of their situation. And they’re constantly working to better their situation, which is always, to me, the most kind of respect I have for the group and the people that work in those environments in those places.
Brian Bienkowski
And maybe this is hard to answer. But I’m wondering, how you’ve carried that forward, that feeling that you had of having been there and having met people? And that sense of place? How was that? How have you carried that forward?
Nsilo Berry
Yeah, that’s a great question. I think for me, when I got there as a 20 year old initially, there’s this kind of feeling like, um I, what I’m the stuff am I doing isn’t impactful enough, there was a moment in in when I was working there, where I was walking to kind of my office, and you see some there was somebody on a morgue, they were covered up, and I mean, on a gurney, they’re covered up deceased, and there’ll be taken to the morgue. And so it’s free, that’s a real moment of kind of understanding, of really understanding that, you know, this is people’s lives are on the line here, like, and the work that I’m doing has impact on people’s lives. And so that responsibility weighed on me in a way where it didn’t feel like a burden, or something that you would fall but felt like a responsibility and a moment of opportunity to be your best version of yourself through the combination of work and training that you got up to this very moment here. And so I took that kind of that, that motivation, and carried that with me, but also with that, but also with the support of the people in the clinic who trusted I knew that I knew what I was doing there, right, that would in middle night would call me to come fix the oxygen concentrator for somebody that was you know, that needed it, that would come in and say, hey, great job on this great job in this facility, we need your we need you to go to this clinic in this part of the Gambia. And so I took that, that that motivation and courage and that support. And that’s something that’s been stuck with me throughout this moment in time, everywhere I’ve gone. And it’s always this kind of this, this idea that wherever where I am in that moment, I’m supposed to be there. Because the work that I put in, prove that I’m supposed to be there. I had a moment in college and I forget this was kind of like, I was in a lecture hall, giant lecture hall, and we’re talking about, you know, electronic stuff about, the teacher’s laying out their expectations and what to expect from you. And I remember coming on to lecture hall, just got because like 18 or so. And I felt like at the moment in time, the stage was too bright for me, like metaphorically speaking, like, I don’t know if I can handle this., I remember I called my mom from the lunchroom at Drexel. I was like, You know what, I’m gonna transfer, I’m gonna get into something else. Like, in that moment, I really want to run away from that thing. And my mom said something that was just the simplest thing, but she said “Nsilo, you know, where you are? I’m like, I’m at school, and she said,”the job of the teachers there is to also to teach you those things, too, right?” And I said, You know what, that makes a ton of sense. So that all that anxiety I had pent up about I should know these things already. What didn’t make any sense in that moment? Because I’m getting to a place where they’re supposed to teach me how to how to put these connections together, how to solder this, how to do that, what is the capacitor? What is that, whatever. I said, You know what, okay, I’ll do that. And from then on, I take in the moment, like, when I’m jumping into something new, this is the first moment where I’m gonna be the least kind of knowledgeable on the situation, and then you build upon that day each and every single day doesn’t mean they’re not gonna be harder days later. But this is the moment in time where you’re gonna just be the most lack of you’re gonna have the most lack of knowledge in the moment. And that you can build upon that moving forward. And so I’ve always kind of taken that mindset. And then really, from there jumping in things with both feet, and then figure them out as you go in that thing, with the support of others in your team and people around you too.
Brian Bienkowski
those things are so common among successful people, I think. Both learning humility, I think is really important. But also, there’s something and I see it with people in this program all the time, is people who are really hard on themselves, you know, feel like you should know all these things. But learning to rely on others is so important. So I want to fast forward to your work that you’re doing now, which ehn.org is very familiar with, because we’ve we’ve worked with, worked with you folks a little bit. So you are at the Healthy Building Network. And I don’t think most people think of buildings when they think of toxic chemicals. So first off, what are the concerns there? And how do these materials impact people’s health?
Nsilo Berry
And that’s a great question, Brian, for me, think about it like this. I want everybody who listened to the podcast, think about how much time you spent within the building, whether it’s your home, whether it’s a place of worship, whether it’s your work, whether it’s a school, right? think about what that really means and compare that to the time you spend outside, right, I’m not talking about like cracking a window from inside your home, but really spending time outside. I think people will be hard pressed to think that they spent a lot of their time inside, taking in kind of all the fumes and the materials that they build from, either from furniture or from carpet or for whatever the case may be or from maybe paint that they maybe they painted a new room in their home or something like that. Um, so when it comes to toxic materials, we’re talking about things that, you know, manufacturers put into their their products to make them more viable, to last longer on the shelves. But oftentimes these things have detriments on kind of our development human beings. Rather, it’s kind of things related to carcinogens, things related to kind of developmental toxics, it’s for individuals who are pregnant, or things that just don’t go away what you call PBTS, a persistent biochemical bioaccumulative, toxic, it’s things that just don’t go away, they’re mad annoying, trust me, right. And so when we talk about these, these chemicals, and the impact of these, these are some things that if I go into a room for like an hour or so and then leave, okay, and I never go back in the room, that’s one thing. But we’re sleeping in these, we’re staying in these, we’re building our lives in these. And so that’s where kind of the, the systems of these chemicals begin to infiltrate into ourselves, in our body. And our body begins to kind of be impacted on these in a way where we see more cases of higher asthma in poor housing, right? we see higher incidence of carcinogens and people who work in PVC locations or PVC factories, right? we see these things where individuals are becoming contracted with the disease at a higher rate, right, where it just doesn’t make sense compared to the rest of the population, right. And then you start looking at kind of the digest of materials when it comes to building homes. And places that have affordable housing are built with legacy systems, poor materials that that needs to be replaced, that haven’t been replace compared to maybe a suburban home, that has the most green places, is the most green kind of facility or home management, whatever you want to say, that has just a much more healthy kind of one, functional way to it, but also scientifically, a lot healthier compared to the individuals who live in the community housing that you might see in more urban areas. So think about, think about the impact of that. And think about kind of what that means for you long term, what that means for your kids. And what that means kind of for individuals who might find themselves kind of immuno-compromised, but also develop conditions, you think that would just don’t make quite much sense when you compare it to either your cohort, the people who live next to you or the people who live in different communities that you see just lower incidences of these type of things like asthma, like the development of cancer in particular. So that’s kind of where those those kinds of two fields intersect. It’s one of the type of things that if you don’t know what you’re looking for, you’re not going to find it, you don’t think it’s just a home I’m coming into. But people have an idea when they see these type of things about, I don’t feel safe in this home, this home feels kind of like a kind of maybe like a prison, I don’t feel healthy in this place. I want to get out of this place. We have this intuition as human beings. So I think it’s very interesting to, to think about too, when it comes to kind of the place that we live and where we, you know, make our lives and so on and so forth.
Brian Bienkowski
I think the bringing up the idea that low-income housing is often more saddled with these things is really important. Because when I talk to people about the work that we do on toxic chemicals, is you okay, yes, it’s bad, you’re exposed to something that could harm you. It’s bad, but then you think about the downstream impacts. So you have a family who’s already low income, now is saddled with health problems and their children are, so is their health care available? they probably don’t have adequate access to health care or aren’t offered from their jobs if they’re low income. So it’s the cycle, you know, and then the kids are growing up in an environment that makes them sick more, and then they stay in low income housing and the cycle continues. So I think it’s important to think about these kinds of generational impacts. And it’s just kind of a system keeping the foot on the throat of certain, certain groups of people. So I think that work, the work that you’re doing is very important. And where does kind of Healthy Building Network fit into this? Is it just on kind of the advocacy of safer materials and trying to get these bad actors out of building materials?
Nsilo Berry
Yeah, as a we, we kind of ourselves as a research organization. And that’s where we are. So a lot of the work that we’re doing, we put together, we look into research. So we’re looking at a bunch of safety data sheets, and harmful product declarations, what are in these chemicals? How do we get rid of them, but also how we manage them too. Another part of our work is kind of managing our Pharos database, which is a database full of different chemicals that come together from different lists and regulatory lists throughout the world. So we have lists from Japan, we have lists from America, we have lists from Canada, Europe, that list where these kinds of chemicals fall on these different registrar’s and what they mean for kind of the the human impact, but also environmental impact too, where they’re talking about ozone depletion in particular, as well, but also kind of where these chemicals fall among kind of the toxic spaces and, and kind of how do we get the information out to people so they know, architects know, building owners know, developers know, “hey, I’m putting this type of paint that has these type of chemicals in it, just so you know, this chemicals are associated with these types of hazards. So you got to make better decisions here.” Right and also part of our work is creating these kind of this product guidance or these how to spectra that shows you kind of ranking these things from like a stoplight system like saying hey, Green has the least toxics in it, where Red is kind of the worst type of thing you want to avoid these type of things and really, you know a lot of our guys is kind of staying out of this kind of orange zone and moving away from the red and and making the the easy wins and the easy victory so to speak, when it comes to kind of developing your home and putting kind of the best things in your home for the right reason, so to speak. So that’s where we fall on it. We’re a small organization. So we have to know our limitations. So when it comes to the advocacy side, Brian of it, a lot of it is working with groups like coming clean, for example, health organizations like that, who have the kind of the bandwidth to kind of do the more kind of vocal stuff or working with kind of more grassroots things related to that maybe like the NAACP, they have a great CSBs sustainable equity, and the sustainable building sector. That’s the kind of their side organization is related to building. So working groups like that, when it comes to the activist side of it to help kind of push that message out, helps with kind of our work so that we’re not overextending ourselves, too. Because I think as researchers, I think that one thing we have to kind of do is focus on our thing, but find the ways where we can work with other people in a team to impact the space more kind of effectively.
Brian Bienkowski
And are there examples of whether it’s companies, building practices, projects that you’re seeing that are doing this construction in a healthy, sustainable way?
Nsilo Berry
Yeah, there’s two that come into mind. We worked with a group called Sara architects, I believe they were started in Portland, but they have offices in California. It was a demonstration project that we work with them about a new project they’re building in California for individuals who are low income, low income housing. And for them, they’re really I really want to champion them as an organization because they care about healthy materials, and building them and making them part of their mission there too. So they came to us, we talked about the project and they said, “Hey, we’re building these prizes with these so many units here. What are the ways that we can improve this project to make sure we can make it the healthiest as possible as viable within a kind of our constraints, our budget, so on and so forth.” So we have the opportunity to go back and forth with them. So my colleagues… we did a great job at kind of telling us, okay, this is a victory. This is a point here, you can do choose better paint here. What about the drywall here? What about the carpet here? Making just better decisions throughout that so people don’t have to think about that, because you mentioned that earlier, Brian, people saddled with all these issues here. And I think part of our work is it’s kind of take that burden off of them. So they can focus on the things within their lives, rather than thinking about, hey, can you replace these pipes, can you places drywall, can you replace this paint for me, like those things should already be taken care for. If you care about the people early on, that’s something that people shouldn’t have to worry about. They should be trusting that coming into a home, they’re getting a safe product, like almost like ordering some food, they’re getting a safe, healthy, you know, dish that they’re getting here, it hasn’t been tainted with this, and it has good, you know, products in it, ingredients in it, so to speak. And the same thing should be with your home too. When you’re coming into your house, you space, those things should also be healthy too. I don’t care if the person is low income, I don’t care if the person is a veteran, that has no impact on those type of things. In comparison, we’re talking about individuals who are higher income, who are more privileged, right, those things should be the same for both people. And so that group is a group that gets that we’ve worked with them previously, we do a bunch of webinars with them. And so that’s something that they care about, too, as well. Another group is United Interest for Justice, a community grassroots organization based in Minnesota. And they did a great job at working with different groups and helping getting people away from abusive landlords. And doing so they take over the the kind of the, the the tenant to take over the apartment complex. And in doing so they have the opportunity now, to redefine what’s important to us, what are the things that matter to us, more building these apartment complexes out, right. So a lot of it is retroactive birchbark, and get these old materials out that didn’t replace, we’re getting this old paint out, they didn’t replace, we’re getting this old drywall out, they didn’t replace so working with kind of the local banks and getting the loans that they need, but also working with us to say, Hey, if you’re going to replace your place, think about this paint that you should be using because this paint doesn’t have XY and Z in it. Right to help with kind of long term impacts we’re talking about. We’re talking about furniture, look with furniture that doesn’t have halogenated flame retardants in it. Right? So working with a group like that, who’s taken the opportunity to say, hey, we’re at the foundation, we need to start building a foundation properly. So how do we how do we reach out to Who do you work with so those are two groups that I believe that, you know, when they’re talking about a foundation, they know kind of who to get involved early with. And so when it comes to health materials start early, it is a lot easier and a lot cheaper for you in the long run to put the stuff in at the beginning. Rather than try to come come back in later or try to redefine processes later, where you kind of have the systematic approach to something already, it is a lot harder to redefine behavior that you learn especially bad habits, rather than starting a good habit and building upon good habits moving forward. That’s a lot more. And that’s I think that’s a lot more fundamental, fundamentally viable for your organization moving forward, but also for the people who occupy your space that you build, moving forward to as well. So start with good habits early, build on good habits later and maintain those in the present. That’s what helps impact healthy materials, you know, on a systematic level.
Brian Bienkowski
It’s a great point. I mean, the most obvious example of that is lead paint, right? I mean, we use lead paint for years and to try to get rid of it in houses now create sometimes creates more problems because you’re just kicking up dust. So that points well taken. So in your Agency of Change essay you talked about inadequate affordable housing in the US and ways to do it better. So you’ve talked about the links between toxics in the home and low income housing, but this essay was more about just being able to afford a home. I mean, you talked a little bit about healthy materials, but it was more about just having homes that are affordable and something you can be proud of. Can you explain why this too is a health issue and how this fits into your Healthy Buildings work?
Nsilo Berry
Yeah, that’s a great question I mentioned at the end of it, starting with kind of the fundamentals and the foundation, which I kind of ended my essay with come to that point, too, as well. And the point is that is that we’re talking about healthy materials. Think about it like this. It’s a it’s it’s a part of the umbrella that you go way down in the chain it but it’s not the biggest part that covers the entire kind of encapsulation of affordable housing. Like for me, you have to begin with the foundation part of it, which is affordable housing and wheeling starting with those those positive systematic impacts. If you cannot do that, then when you get to healthy materials, you’re just not going to have the time or the space or the opportunity to say, hey, we need to get this lead paint out of here, right? The lead paint being in those in those homes. That is a systematic that people did way back when that people now have to live with today till today. So getting those out, and it’s going to cost even more money, it’s going to be a retroactive issue that builds up over time, like, and so we’re talking about groups like NYCHA, for example, who I was critical of in the essay, it’s not that because people in there don’t care about that they don’t have the opportunity or the space to care about these type of things. Because they’re, they don’t have a lot of individuals who are committed as far as just kind of having the the power, the employee power to do what they have to do. But it becomes an increasingly expensive issue when your organization is lacking the funding either from state or from a federal sense to make the change that you need required, right, it’s a lot more, it’s a lot easier to have just a plot of land and build up and have everything that’s just clean and green, and so on and so forth, rather than having these old decrepit buildings, tearing them down, building them back up doing this doing that getting construction in there, it all becomes a logistical nightmare, because these are in urban areas with surrounding businesses, and you have to get permits, and it becomes just a thing where at this point, why are we even talking about the materials at this point? there are so many other issues that linger throughout this place that healthy materials is not even like, you just listen to me like, like five minutes in like a community hearing just because you have to, you know, do have the time or whatever the case may be so. So when it comes to healthy materials, you know, I like to advocate for solution that when it becomes really sensible and viable to do so just saying, hey, we need to do these things. That’s great. Right? But you have to understand the concept of what you’re asking people to do what you’re asking for folks, right? If people get to them, say, hey, we can we can talk about health materials law, like United Interest for Justice, right? That’s a great opportunity talk about that moment, after they secured the new apartments after they secured after the move away from the landlords, after they secured the funding, rather than trying to talk to them as they’re going through this kind of this logist this kind of legislative nightmare to try and beat the landlord, the abusive landlord from you know, getting separating them from their the current apartment complexes, right. So you have to have this opportunity to understanding when to do these things, and get to people early, but be smart about and recognize kind of what’s on their plate, and not just pile more stuff on there. Because if you’re piling a bunch of solutions that aren’t, that aren’t, that people cannot hold together, it’s all just going to fall apart. You’ve seen that before in a bunch of different spaces where people try to do too much. You have to do enough in the moment and be forceful in those moments, to then push things forward at the next moment, if that makes sense, right?
Brian Bienkowski
It does make sense and your point about almost making it for people who are doing the building and making those decisions, making it an economic win for them, you’re not going to have to go in and redo things and constantly be changing things do it right from the beginning, and then you save money in the long run. Unfortunately, we don’t we don’t often think like that. What are people that are making decisions don’t. So before I switch gears a little bit and get into some fun stuff I’d like to ask folks some of this work can be can be heavy, although it sounds like you guys have had some some significant victories along the way. But what makes you optimistic in this space?
Nsilo Berry
And it’s a great question. I think for me, the big part of is that I’m I’m meeting different people every day that that that are that one wants to have the conversation, but how can materials which is important in anything, but are saying hey, let’s do a project together. Let’s do these things together. So they’re reaching out to us or to other organizations about the materials. They want to know more about them, and maintaining a relationship and moments like that. So we can build upon kind of a new culture of healthy materials. That’s what makes me the most optimistic about it today. I think that a lot of kind of in in having it being a small organization that we are as HBN we have a lot of influence and a lot of different space from either connections and people knowing us. And so we’re, we get constantly invited to talk about things to do about to do these things. But I think something that we’re now asking people to is that if you’re going to ask them do these things. What are you being committed to after this conference, right? Don’t just take this this weekend here in June or July just to have us here. But let’s build upon something moving forward. You know, how are you building these practices into your architecture firm? How are you building these things into local legislation? if you’re part of kind of like statewide legislation that comes to housing, these things are things that people are excited to do, and we brainstorm and we have this conversation with them about. So I think for me, that’s the most optimistic part about this. And I think people are getting to the moment where we’re understanding that, that you know, as the dawdling can’t continue to go on, because that means that the people who are most saddled with this, as you mentioned, Brian, continue to still be in that situation, we don’t have time to dot all this, we know what the issues are, we know what the problems are, it is now to start building things, you know, correctly moving forward. And course correcting kind of that work that we that was done previous before us a proof of work jumped into these positions, up position until today. So a lot of that is, I think, for me, where my optimism lies in this kind of work. And I’m really excited about the the people that I’ve met, and the people that I’ve continued to meet, that are doing this work, and it seems like you’re just meeting different people in different spaces in different kind of, you know, you know, positions that you don’t have the influence to say, hey, you know, we’re gonna start doing this now moving forward. And to me, that’s a big victory, because that’s gonna mean something to that family that moves into that development two years from now, right. And that’s gonna be something to you know, that generation, family, and so on, and so forth. So and that community, so to speak. So that, to me is where my I think my optimism lies the most.
Brian Bienkowski
That’s excellent. And I mean, those kinds of collaborations in my work to you, when you start realizing that a lot of people are rowing in the same direction, and you can kind of combine your power is, it really is a bright spot in a lot of this environmental work. So you mentioned earlier, taking the hardest path and being a masochist. And maybe in sports. Well, I’m a Detroit Lions fan. So I, I think I may be when the masochism on that front. But I want to talk about sports, we had a chance in person to talk about this. And I know, we’re both sports fans. So what’s, what role do they play in your life? And who are some of your must-see teams?
Nsilo Berry
Yeah, absolutely. I think sports for me is a big part of kind of what I think about today, I watched less kind of the sport debate shows just because I think they’re so dramatic and really corny at times, but, but I’m always down to have a sports conversation with people that I work with, and things like that. But for me, sports is has been a big part of kind of my development as a person. I think it helps me kind of understand this, this understanding of, you know, when you make a decision, you have to understand a few things associated with that. One, you have to make the choice. So kind of the courage and bravery to do so. The second part is understanding sacrifice, and other part is consequence. So those are those three type of things. I think I learned that from playing sports and understanding that these things all play a role in the space here, especially in a team sport, right? There’s gonna be people next to you, you don’t know how hard in the offseason they’re working to do their, their their game, right. But if they put on that same jersey, as you, they’re your teammate in this moment, and you gotta live with whatever happens in that moment, whether you make this a mistake, whether they make a mistake, it’s, it is what it is, but you have to live with that. And that’s something that you accept when you put that jersey on, right. So that’s the decision you have to make. I think for me understanding consequence and sacrifice, I think about those things when I make decisions today even kind of in my in my work, but also kind of in in my personal life too, as well. And I think it helped me understand that you know, anything worth having, you have to make a certain sacrifice for it. And I think that when we talk about certain things, and we discuss things, maybe on a more kind of political and societal level, I think we, the patterns that we run into, are individuals unable to understand that they have to make the sacrifice, or they don’t want to make a sacrifice, because they want to have it all. And you really can’t have it all. If you want to see the changes that you want to see as a society, we’re gonna have to make a sacrifice on this particular issue. It’s going to be certain consequences, you might get a certain backlash from your group or constituents. But there’s some things that you have to do. We’ve seen that when, when we talked about kind of January 6, and the attack on the Capitol, you saw the Republicans who said, Hey, I think we should have a committee, and you saw the backlash they got from their other constituents on that, right. So those type of things were, that’s the kind of a sacrifice and you get frozen out from that. And you might have just killed your own political career, because you went against the grain of everybody else associated with you, right. And so that’s just one example. But that’s kind of how we talked about it on the bigger scale, and we tried to have it all but you really can’t have it all. You have to make a decision. And I think and I think having that helps me understand, face disappointment, helps me helps me kind of understand success, and helps me how to build upon the next day too. Because that moment doesn’t signify everything for you. You also have the opportunity in the next moment to be better than you were in this previous moment. Whether that whether that was a victory or a loss in that current moment, you can still build upon the next one. And so we’ll be talking about kind of like my favorite teams watch obviously being from me, I should say, obviously, I’m a huge Eagles fan. So watching that stuff, obviously tough loss in the Super Bowl. I don’t want to talk about it – I blame Rihanna dammit, you know, that halftime show. I’m just kidding, just kidding, she was sensational, sensational image, even if she was pregnant she was sensational in that half-time show, really. But somebody like Patrick Mahomes is it’s must-see TV. Like, if you want to lose to somebody, you want to somebody who might be one of the greatest ever do it. Like, he might be those people like you know, we’ve talked about great players he prevented a lot of other great players win winning championships because he was so damn good. That to me is incredible and but also seems more like Andy Reid in it, it takes the pain away less. I did cry dude, after I was mad because I spent so much money on food. I My, People came over, I sent them home, I think I closed my door and I think I just went to sleep. I maybe cried. I think I woke up I saw some tears my pillows. But the point is that but people like that it’s just people you have to, you have to respect people like that. Those people who go through it, who fought he was having a bad ankle, he fought through it, still was able to a way to get through it. Even Jalen Hurts, our own quarterback, bad fumble comes back brings the team back, he was going toe to toe with him, with Patrick Mahomes. And so someone like that is someone you’re incredibly proud of as Eagles fan to see that. So, for me, it’s always going to be the Eagles, Mercy TV. And now so I’m Patty. So Dallas is my must-see TV two, because they’re going to disappoint you, when you need the most to do it. They’re gonna disappoint you too. So there must-see TV too, for me as well. So, but no, I think that’s sports, for me is an incredible moment and something that I think about even to this day, and I love of course, the competition of it, there’s some competition, I think is is very beneficial for your growth. People understand it’s not about the person you’re facing on the field or wherever you are, that person is a physical manifestation of an impediment in that moment, because I personally want to change next week when you come to a different type of game, right? So it’s not the person, that’s important, right? It’s that moment, and how do you overcome that moment, and that’s the preparation to your teamwork, to the sacrifice, to the consequence, all those decision making. That’s what’s important in that space. And I love that part of sports so much.
Brian Bienkowski
I do too. And I think you put it really well, all the lessons you draw from playing sports and, and watching it to a large extent too and learning from the people that that that put up all that sacrifice. There’s a couple other things I’d add, and maybe they’re not as important, but I feel like sports is a real connector for me. I mean, the first time I met you, I mean, we talked about it I when I when I don’t see my uncle’s who maybe I disagree with on all kinds of other things. It’s something it’s common, it’s just common ground. It’s something that we connect with. And the other thing is it’s it’s relatively light. Like I could listen to podcasts on sports throughout the day and not feel the existential crises of the work that we engage in. So I like that about it a lot too. Awesome. Well, the sale this has been a lot of fun. I have a few more questions here. And this is just rapid fire three questions where you can just answer with one word, or a phrase. So if I could vacation, anywhere it would be
Nsilo Berry
I’d be in a submarine or on a boat, traveling the seas for an extended period of time that I would do something like that, something involving the water
Brian Bienkowski
I like that. My first concert was
Nsilo Berry
My mom took me to, when I was little, KC and the Sunshine Band. They were on tour somewhere I think in Virginia, something like that. So I went to one of their concerts,
Brian Bienkowski
Man, that is a that is a really good one. If I could have dinner with one person living or deceased, it would be
Nsilo Berry
Baseball opening day’s around the corner, Jackie Robinson. I would love to talk to him.
Brian Bienkowski
Another great one. Well Nsilo, what is the last book you read for fun and you don’t have to confine yourself to one word or phrase here.
Nsilo Berry
I did The Little Prince and check this pronunciation now: by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. You see, I didn’t practice it, practice that right before the podcast everybody. I’m just kidding. I practiced that right before the podcast, I was practicing in the greenroom. But no, I think the Little Prince is it’s essentially just about a pilot who crashes lands on a planet. And meets this Little Prince, and they just have a conversation about life and talk about these different things like this. And so it’s a really interesting journey about kind of just finding your own growth in your own space. Something similar too. if you’ve ever had the collection of short stories of The Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling. It’s not the kind of thing about that when Mowgli is kind of going through his own his own kind of transition where he kind of missed the jungle. But he gets to a point where Bagheera the Panther tells him say, hey, Mowgli, like you’re of age, you’re your of age now and the people that you, you know that we will always love you. But that’s not who you are. You have to go be with your people. And you have to go can experience life on your own and on your own terms. And that’s something that I think about a lot too, especially growing up in from St. Louis, like, you move away from those people that are your best friends and all your childhood friends. And you have to grow and experience the world that the way that you know for what’s best for you. And that’s always a I think it’s always a tough intersection to overcome. And think about, but books like that always helped me kind of just think about kind of similarities in those tough choices we think about kind of in life today and so on, so forth.
Brian Bienkowski
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. It’s been really great to hear more about your work and your personal story. Nsilo, thanks so much for doing this.
Optional Material (Dive Deeper)
Podcasts
A call for redesigning American streets
Duration: 00:21:09
Released: 2018
Series: Better Off
In this week’s podcast we’ll explore how America’s streets can be redesigned to benefit bicyclists and pedestrians—and we’ll explain why doing so may even help mitigate the effects of climate change. A new study from Anne Lusk, research scientist in the Department of Nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, analyzed how bicyclists and pedestrians responded to various placements of trees along cycle tracks—barrier-protected bicycle-exclusive paths between the road and the sidewalk. The research shows that the placement of these trees can play an important role in how people walking and biking perceive traffic, pollution, heat, and even safety. But the benefits extend beyond just those using the street—and could even be a factor in mitigating the effects of climate change. These trees may make it more likely that people will bike—helping to reduce pollution. And increased greenery can also help cool cities, which often suffer from a heat island effect, which means they’re significantly warmer than more rural areas. Lusk says all of this highlights the need to re-think how we’re designing streets to encourage more people to walk and bike instead of drive.
A More Walkable World: Ideas to get us moving
Duration: 00:50:34
Released: 2024
Series: TED Radio Hour
We know walking is good for our bodies, our communities, and our planet. But our car-centric cities and screen-filled lives keep us sitting. Can we change? This hour, ideas to get us moving. Guests include author Vybarr Cregan-Reid, computer historian Laine Nooney, exercise physiologist Keith Diaz, urban planner Jeff Speck, activists John Francis and Vanessa Garrison. TED Radio Hour+ subscribers now get access to bonus episodes, with more ideas from TED speakers and a behind the scenes look with our producers. A Plus subscription also lets you listen to regular episodes (like this one!) without sponsors. Sign-up at: plus.npr.org/ted See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy
Are Rats Running This Podcast?
Duration: 00:14:05
Released: 2023
Series: Short Wave
This week, New York City crowned Kathleen Corradi its first rat czar. The new position is part of a multipronged approach from city officials. Reporter and New Yorker Anil Oza called up rodentologists to understand — does their approach withstand the test of scientific research? We love hearing your musings and questions about the science in your everyday life. Reach us by emailing shortwave@npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy
Ashley James on protecting children from environmental exposures
Duration: 00:35:37
Released: 2022
Series: Agents of Change in Environmental Justice
Ashley James joins the Agents of Change in Environmental Justice podcast to discuss reframing how we think about children’s health, and what organizers and regulators can learn from each other.
Can we end chronic homelessness?
Duration: 00:19:07
Released: 2023
Series: Better Off
It’s estimated that half a million Americans are experiencing homelessness. Even a brief period of housing insecurity can make existing health issues worse, and bring up new physical and mental traumas. Doctors and nurses who help patients navigate these issues have a prescription: More housing, and more services. Is it possible to end chronic homelessness, even as eviction moratoriums end and rents increase? And is a housing-first model the best way to achieve that goal?Guests:Ana Rausch, Vice President of Program Operations at Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Harris CountyKimberley Richardson, therapistMaggie Sullivan, family nurse practitioner, Boston Health Care for the Homeless and instructor and human rights fellow, FXB Center, Harvard UniversityCredits:Host/producer: Anna Fisher-PinkertThe Better Off team: Kristen Dweck, Elizabeth Gunner, Pamela Reynoso, Stephanie Simon, and Ben WallaceAudio engineering and sound design: Kevin O’ConnellAdditional research: Kate Becker
Curbing Urban Sprawl - Why Better City Planning Could Mean Better Health
Duration: 00:15:16
Released: 2026
Series: Public Health On Call
About this episode: Recent research from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health finds that living in a compact metropolitan setting could yield more health benefits than living in a more sprawling suburban area. In this episode: the report’s lead researcher, Shima Hamidi, explains why this is the case and how communities can reshape infrastructure to foster mobility and connection. Guest: Shima Hamidi, PhD, MSc, is a Bloomberg Associate Professor of American Health in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering and director of the Center for Smart Transportation. Host: Stephanie Desmon, MA, is a former journalist, author, and the director of public relations and communications for the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs. Show links and related content: Sprawl Rankings Reveal Health Benefits and Cost Offsets in Compact, Connected U.S. County and Metro Areas—Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Mapping Urban Sprawl in the U.S.@bloombergamericanhealth via Instagram Associations between Urban Sprawl and Life Expectancy in the United States—International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health Relationship between urban sprawl and physical activity, obesity, and morbidity - update and refinement—Health & Place Transcript information: Looking for episode transcripts? Open our podcast on the Apple Podcasts app (desktop or mobile) or the Spotify mobile app to access an auto-generated transcript of any episode. Closed captioning is also available for every episode on our YouTube channel. Contact us: Have a question about something you heard? Looking for a transcript? Want to suggest a topic or guest? Contact us via email or visit our website. Follow us: @PublicHealthPod on Bluesky @PublicHealthPod on Instagram @JohnsHopkinsSPH on Facebook @PublicHealthOnCall on YouTube Here’s our RSS feed Note: These podcasts are a conversation between the participants, and do not represent the position of Johns Hopkins University.
Designing for climate change
Duration: 00:24:30
Released: 2018
Series: Better Off
A new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that students who lived in dormitories without air conditioning during a heat wave performed worse on a series of simple tests compared with students who lived in air-conditioned dorms. The findings show that the effects of extreme heat are not just felt by those typically thought of as vulnerable—such as the elderly. And with global temperatures on the rise, the research underscores the need for sustainable design solutions in mitigating the health impacts of extreme heat. In this week’s episode, we’ll speak with the authors of that study to learn how we can better design our buildings and cities to adapt to our changing climate. You’ll hear from Joe Allen, assistant professor of exposure assessment science and director of the Healthy Buildings Program at the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment, and Jose Guillermo (Memo) Cedeño Laurent, associate director of the Healthy Buildings Program.
Diana Hernández on housing and health
Duration: 01:00:39
Released: 2022
Series: Agents of Change in Environmental Justice
Dr. Diana Hernández joins the Agents of Change in Environmental Justice podcast to discuss how housing and energy impact our health and well-being.
Gas Stoves Are Worsening Breathing Issues, According to Canceled Study
Duration: 00:15:49
Released: 2026
Series: Public Health On Call
About this episode: Accumulating research has linked nitrogen dioxide emissions from gas stoves to exacerbated respiratory issues. A recent study from Case Western Reserve University set out to conduct a large analysis of whether switching to electric stoves could improve breathing conditions, but funding was halted just as early results came in showing significantly improved asthma symptoms. In this episode: what this truncated study can tell us about air quality inside our homes and what’s lost when public health research is canceled. Guest: Ana Rule, PhD, MHS, is an associate professor of Environmental Health and Engineering. Host: Stephanie Desmon, MA, is a former journalist, author, and the director of public relations and communications for the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs. Show links and related content: Asthma Control Before and After Changing Gas Stoves to Electric Stoves—The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology The EPA halted a study on gas stoves and asthma. But even partial results were striking.—Washington Post Gas stoves might pose risks to both our planet and health—The Hub How States Can Better Regulate Indoor Air Quality—Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Transcript information: Looking for episode transcripts? Open our podcast on the Apple Podcasts app (desktop or mobile) or the Spotify mobile app to access an auto-generated transcript of any episode. Closed captioning is also available for every episode on our YouTube channel. Contact us: Have a question about something you heard? Looking for a transcript? Want to suggest a topic or guest? Contact us via email or visit our website. Follow us: @PublicHealthPod on Bluesky @PublicHealthPod on Instagram @JohnsHopkinsSPH on Facebook @PublicHealthOnCall on YouTube Here’s our RSS feed Note: These podcasts are a conversation between the participants, and do not represent the position of Johns Hopkins University.
How America Traded Its Walkable Cities for Parking Lots
How America Traded Its Walkable Cities for Parking Lots | Boring History for Sleep
Duration: 02:21:20
Released: 2026
Series: Boring History For Sleep By The Snoozetorian
American cities were once built around people on foot. Downtown streets were packed with shops, apartments, streetcars, theaters, restaurants, and neighborhoods where daily necessities could often be reached without getting into a car. Then, after World War II, America began rebuilding its cities around the automobile.This video explores how highways, suburban expansion, urban renewal, zoning, and massive parking requirements transformed the American landscape. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 accelerated construction of the Interstate Highway System with the federal government covering 90% of Interstate construction costs. Meanwhile, suburbanization surged: in 1950, 23.3% of Americans lived in suburbs, but by 2000 that figure had reached 50%.Entire urban neighborhoods were demolished or divided by freeways and redevelopment projects, while historic buildings and downtown blocks were increasingly replaced by roads, garages, and surface parking. Parking minimums later reinforced car-oriented development by requiring businesses and housing projects to dedicate substantial amounts of land to automobiles.Discover how America went from compact, walkable neighborhoods to sprawling suburbs and parking lots—and why many cities are now trying to reverse the transformation.ResourcesInterstate System – Federal Highway Administration – FHWA Interstate System History1950 Census Records: A Window to History – U.S. Census Bureau – U.S. Census BureauAmerican Place: The Historic American Buildings Survey at Seventy-Five Years – National Park Service – National Park ServiceUrban Renewal and the Post-War American City – U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development – HUD ArchivesParking Spaces/Community Places – U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – U.S. EPA
How Congestion Pricing Can Impact Human Health
Duration: 00:17:50
Released: 2024
Series: Science Friday
In early June, New York Governor Kathy Hochul blocked a congestion pricing plan from going into effect in New York City. This plan would have charged a fee for cars to enter the central business district of Manhattan, and it would have been the first congestion pricing plan to be fully implemented in the United States.While congestion pricing can be costly for commuters, the fact that it keeps some cars off the road means it can have health benefits for surrounding communities. Successfully implemented congestion pricing plans in cities such as London, Singapore, and Stockholm have led to better air quality and health.SciFri’s John Dankosky sits down with Dr. Janet Currie, co-director of Princeton’s Center for Health and Wellbeing, and Dr. Andrea Titus, assistant professor of the Department of Population Health at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, to talk about the health impacts that congestion pricing has had around the world as well as the potential effects it could have in New York City and in other cities in the United States.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
How Do Urban Landscapes Shape Our Health?
Duration: 00:37:04
Released: 2025
Series: Humans in Public Health
A special live Commencement & Reunion Weekend episode of Humans in Public Health brings experts from epidemiology together with the director of Urban Studies at Brown for a discussion on cities: How they collect public health problems and the ways they might help us to address those same issues.
How Housing Discrimination Works
Duration: 00:54:14
Released: 2021
Series: Stuff You Should Know
Owning a home in the US is a way to pass wealth down from one generation to the next and lift families into a comfortable life down the road. But there have been barriers to buying homes that Black Americans have faced from the time of slavery to today. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I’m Josh Clark,
and there’s Charles W Chuck Bryan over there, and this
is stuff you should know. Um the man oh man addition,
(00:25):
do you know what I love about this topic is
that it’s not just a bunch of like ranting about
how we think things are and how people think things are.
It’s like so studied and statistic heavy that you can
talk about how things are and then say, and here’s
(00:45):
the proof exactly, here’s a lot of data to back
it up. It’s really great. I love it when they
dovetail like this. Yeah. I get the impression, though, UM
that you when you’re talking about the studying race and
especially in America like you are, you have to back
it up with data like people are like, oh, yeah,
I don’t I don’t know about that. But um, I
want to give a shout out to actually to um
(01:08):
uh scholars both sell sociologists of race. UM Professor Villnabashi
Treatler from UC Santa Barbara and Professor Tricia Rose of
Brown University both are experts on this stuff and they
helped me out big time with this and some other
research on on racism I’ve done, um and they Dr
(01:28):
Bashi Treatler said, hey, make sure you mentioned this hashtag
we have going called site hashtag. Sorry, and I’m making
the hashtag symbol like justin Timberlake hashtag site black women
ce I t e black women. UM, and that leads
you to all sorts of good often overlooked research by
black scholars. Um, who are women that don’t always get
(01:51):
a lot of credit. So I’m glad you told me
about that one. I wanted to tell everybody else. So
when you, uh, that was a stutter when he said
so so sociologists, you didn’t mean they were just mediocre sociologists. No,
I was. I was sociologist. I could see how that
would be confusing. I was doing my impression of Phil
Collins saying sociologist so so studio. Yeah, well that’s the
(02:16):
last joke we’re gonna tell you. Oh yeah, probably. I
was warned by Dr Bashi Treatler not to do our
usual stick when we’re talking about race stuff, and I
was like, well, I mean, we we can handle ourselves.
She said. I I listened to your stuff. I listened
to the Braws episode just trust me on this. It’s like,
all right, So then that means the housing discrimination episode
(02:38):
officially starts. Now, that’s right. So that’s what we’re talking about, dude.
Housing discrimination and um uh in the United States, and
there is a very long history of housing discrimination. And
you might say, like, well, that really sucks. That sucks
that people have trouble buying a home or maybe they
get less favorable terms on their loans just because of
(02:59):
their race, and that does suck. That’s absolutely true. But
it’s even worse than that because in the United States,
one of the biggest ways of growing wealth intergenerationally, like
over the course of generations within a single family is
through a house. Yeah, I mean it’s sometimes people don’t
(03:19):
have a ton of money to invest in the stock market.
Some people think the stock market is not something to trust.
But one thing that has always been fairly reliable in
this country, you know, say, for a few moments in history,
is real estate and the idea that if you scrap
up and save enough money for a down payment for
a home, that house will eventually be worth quite a
(03:42):
bit more years later, and you can sell it and
use that extra windfall of cash to invest in the
stock market or to pass down to your kids so
they can then get in the housing market sooner than
they might have and then it just becomes a cycle
where it just builds wealth. Yeah, Like the average family
(04:02):
in America has most of their net worth tied up
in their house, and then you know, when it comes
time to sell it and the house is paid off,
that’s a lot of money. And then when you kick
the bucket, your kids get that money and maybe they
get a better house, and it just keeps growing and growing.
So if you put up barriers to housing, you’re actually
putting up barriers to passing along intergenerational wealth. And as
(04:24):
a big, big problem in America. UM Still today, I
saw a study from I think Brookings that found that,
um the median. Yeah, brooking study said that the median
net worth of a white family in America is a
hundred and seventy one thousand dollars. The median net worth
(04:48):
of a black family in America is seventeen thousand, one
hundred and fifty dollars, about a ten of what the
median is for white people. And that is largely because
of housing discriminate in the history of housing discrimination in
this country. Yeah, and as far as history goes, you know,
it started with literal racist laws where they said, if
(05:10):
you’re a black person or a black family, you cannot
live here. Um. That went on for a while, and
then those laws were sort of altered to the Jim
Crows Separate but Equal era, where they said, you know what, Um,
we’ll say things are better, but it’s really the same
effect in the end. And then they got rid of
(05:30):
those laws and said, all right, now we’ve really passed
the meaningful legislation, and now we can just racially discriminate
on the down low and very creative ways. Yeah, that’s
basically the pattern that it’s followed. Um. And what kind
of stuck out to meet Chuck is is that before
about nine hundred, before like the rise of like industrialization
(05:53):
to a really legitimate degree in the United States, like,
there wasn’t not nearly as much segregation as we saw
starting around nineteen especially in the North, because if you
had a trade or a craft in the North and
you were an African American, there’s a really good chance
that you were going to be serving white people as
well as black people, right and because you usually were
(06:16):
very closely your home was tied close to your shop,
you often lived above it if you were like a
cobbler or something like that. Um, you made live next
door to a white baker or something like that. So
the there wasn’t a lot of segregation until industrialization came
along and there was a big call for labor, which
drew a lot of African Americans, a lot of Black
(06:38):
Americans out of the South up to the north. And
all of a sudden, all of those people who were
living in integrated neighborhoods, all those white people I should say,
had had a problem with this influx of black migration
from the South to the north, and they responded with
a lot of really disgusting violence. Yeah. I mean, we’ve
talked about some of these, um race incidents and race
(07:01):
riots and race almost race wars really uh here and
there on the show, and they’re always hard to talk about.
But that was just sort of the reality of things
at the time. Um. In the nineteen thirties, the New
Deal comes along, and this is when legislation starts to
kind of kick in. When the government stepped in and said,
you know what, we think we should make it easier
(07:23):
for people to own homes. We really want to boost
home ownership because that’s a boon for the economy of
the country. And we’re going to create the home Owners
Loan Corporation, which is going to help people refinance their mortgages.
But we need some criteria here to sort of establish
a uniform way of like how to how to dole
(07:45):
out this assistance. And they reckoned, let’s let’s look at
every population of forty or more and let’s create a
color coded map that’s based on riskiness of these loans.
And they said, you know, they talked to real estate brokers,
they talk to bankers, and they said, help us out,
help us draw these boundaries, and they came up with
a one, two, three, four color graded system. Right, yeah,
(08:07):
that’s right. Because again this was like long before credit
scores were developed, so you couldn’t really look at you know,
if somebody came into your bank to ask for a loan,
you couldn’t be like, well, you’re your your credit scores this,
So I’m not gonna look at that start. I don’t
know we should do an episode on if we haven’t already.
I don’t think for sure. Um, but yeah, so the
four color codes they had were also um delineated by
(08:29):
grades Grade A, B, C, and D. Grade A was
the most desirable neighborhood. They were usually homogeneous, meaning white. Um,
there were um lots of professionals living in there. Grade
B was maybe a step down, but still largely homogeneous,
if not totally homogeneous, and they were considered still desirable.
And then it started to get into the lower grades
(08:50):
grades C and D, and C was um, I think
colored yellow on the map, right, Yeah, the first two
were green and blue, and then Grade C was rated
as declining and colored yellow and that sort of. In fact,
I think it even said infiltration of a lower grade
population in the document, which you don’t have to be
(09:13):
a genius to figure out what they were saying there.
It means people of color were moving in. And then
finally you end up with the color red Grade D,
which is least desirable. Um, very densely populated areas almost
always communities of color. Right. So um, the h O
l C created these maps, and then um, along came
(09:36):
the Federal Housing Authority and they said, well, we need
similar maps because we’re not we’re not here to help
stem the tide of foreclosures. We’re actually here to generate
new home ownership among Americans. Um, but we still have
the same issue. We got to figure out who’s credit
worthy and who’s not. So we’re going to base it
on where the people live. And they basically made identical
maps to the h O l C maps, and so
(09:58):
they probably used them. Right, there’s a lot of debate.
I don’t think anyone’s found the smoking gun yet. But
if you take an h O l C map in
an f h A map and you put them over
one another, they’re basically the same thing. And I I
it’s kind of all. It’s up for the debate still.
But the the the upshot was that because of these maps, Um,
(10:22):
if you lived in one of these red and often
yellow communities, they wouldn’t lend to you, for um, for
a new mortgage or even a second mortgage to say,
remodel your home. And they also wouldn’t assist you with
refinancing your existing mortgage, which means you’re subject to foreclosure.
And if you were in a red or yellow community,
(10:43):
you were probably um black or a person of color
or some other ethnic minority. And UM, that means that
they were shut out of this enormous housing boom that
generated a tremendous amount of prosperity immediately after the New
Deal in World War Two. As we’ll see, so African
Americans were left out of or on the fringes of
(11:04):
the New Deal anyway. And this is where we get
to shout out Francis Perkins. Perkins again, which is it’s
fun to now that we know so much about her,
to continually shout her out. But she did a lot
of work arguing in favor of inclusion for black people
in the New Deal. Um, I guess you know, sometimes successfully,
sometimes not. But at the end of the day, the
(11:25):
f h A imposed these rules through the New Deal. Uh.
Their maps were just like the UH the h O
l C. And the process of excluding these groups because
they were colored red was called redlining. That is that
like the where that whole term comes from. That’s exactly
where it comes from. So now today, any any time
you’re discriminated against, whether it’s buying insurance or anything like that, um,
(11:49):
based on your race or say your community. Um, it’s
called redlining now. But that’s where it grew out of
those h O l C maps and f A J maps. UM.
And I mean they would use terms and like their
their handbooks that like these communities had quote undesirable racial
or nationality groups in them, so you couldn’t you couldn’t
lend them any money or whatever. Um. And it was
(12:11):
I mean like this is still like a really big
problem today. Yeah, I mean back then basically and still today.
In many cases, that leaves you with a couple of
options as a person of color. You can rent uh
forever um often times back then and still now from
a white landlord who doesn’t live anywhere near that community,
(12:31):
not always, but usually, or just pay for the home
in cash, which is a stretch for anybody. Uh, it’s
it’s tough to do unless you’re like wealthy. And there
were there were, I have to say there were black
owned banks. But there was nine black own banks in
the entire United States in the thirties. So that is
a place where you could turn to if you’re lucky
enough to have one in your area. But that that
(12:53):
was not a solution to the general population for Black Americans. Yeah,
and like you said, also affected their ability to get
second mortgages, to do home improvements or to like expand
on their house and upgrade it, remodel it. So that
means that the properties are gonna deteriorate and decline over
(13:13):
the years, and it’s just it’s part of that systemic
racist cycle that is just prevalent. Yeah, because still today, eventually,
over time people from the outside looking in say, look,
black people can’t even take care of their communities. Look
at look at how their houses are. Um, just as
a result of this. That is definitely like the definition
(13:33):
of systemic racism for sure. It’s just by the way
into the structures. If you hear dogs barking, My dogs
are upstairs and they’re just very excited about this topic. Yeah,
and I don’t know what’s going on there, but they’re
not going to shut up. So let’s say we press on.
We’ll press on. Should we take a break, then press on.
We’re going to press on like some lee nails right
(13:53):
after a break. How about that? All right, it sounds good.
(14:19):
All right, we’re back and look, these things look amazing
on me. Yeah, they’re very nice. There’s a little bit
of cuticle showing. I didn’t put them right up against it,
but it’s still it’s passable. Well, I think if you
paint them just right, that’s not so noticeable. Right, fill ins,
that’s what I need. I need to get some fill ins.
So back to the topic at hand, joking is over. Um,
(14:43):
so here’s the deal. There’s, like you said, a lot
of debate whether or not or I don’t think we
said this part, whether or not the lenders actually use
these maps because these were government maps from government programs.
It’s not like they said, here, banks have these and
use these. Uh. If you look at the statistics, it
seems like they probably got their hands on some of
(15:03):
these maps. It does. And also, don’t forget the government
figured out, you know, how to draw these maps for
every city over forty people from the lenders, from the banks,
from the Yeah, so they knew this anyway, but now
the government has basically said it is okay to do this, um.
And so so yeah, if you if you look at
the outcome of this redlining, these red line maps, um,
(15:28):
it’s it’s really hard to say, no, this didn’t happen
like this definitely didn’t make it out of government hands
like forts here just great, let’s trade off. Between ninety
four and nineteen sixty two, over of all the federally
backed mortgages that were issued in the United States went
(15:49):
to white buyers. Between four and nineteen sixty two, that’s right,
because of this black ownership since then and can tinuing
today is lagged behind white homeownership in America, and seventeen
just a few short years ago, of black Americans own
their homes versus seventy of white Americans. And then the
(16:13):
other problem with redlining a community is you basically put
a pox on it. It’s cursed, because that means that
those houses are not going to get any kind of
attention UM, and so they’re going to continue to deteriorate.
And if you live in this community, as far as
a banker is concerned, you are a huge credit risk. Right,
And so still today UM sev of the neighborhoods that
(16:35):
were originally redlined in those maps are our redline UM
low income communities today, And which is I mean, that’s
pretty surprising. And I also saw that UM study found
that homes and red line neighborhoods we’re still worth less
than half of those in green neighborhoods. Yeah, and here’s
(16:57):
the one. I marked these as stats with an exclamation point,
just that’s how excited I get. But the ones that
I’m really floored by, I don’t even write anything except
for three exclamation points. I’ve got three exclamation points by
that of back federally back mortgages. For sure, that is
definitely one. Um here’s mine. If if you might say, well,
(17:18):
what about variables man and education level and income level
and stuff like that, Like you gotta factor all that in.
That’s a whole other side conversation as far as systemic
racism and being able to go to good schools and
afford a good education and get a good job and
all that. So just park that to the side. But
if you control for all those variables, college educated black
(17:40):
Americans are still less likely to own their home than
white Americans without a high school diploma. Yeah, That’s That’s
what really gets you is when they they’re like, well,
let us just control for all these factors and only
variable that remains is the race of the people applying
for a owner owning a home, and it’s still the case.
(18:02):
That’s when it’s like, well this is indisputable. Actually yeah,
and you know you can put a price on this.
Red Fen did a study um just last year in
twenty that black American families missed out on the opportunity
to accumulate an average of two hundred and twelve thousand
dollars of you know what, we’re talking about that intergenerational
(18:22):
wealth per household over the last forty years, just over
the last forty years. I mean we’re talking about stuff
that started, I mean back in the days of slavery,
but really started to take off in the nineteen thirties
with the New Deal. And this is just since nineteen
eighty they’ve lost out on that amount of money per household.
That’s nuts and still today, Chuck, here’s another one that
gets me. Black American is five times likelier to own
(18:45):
a home in a red line neighborhood than a white
American is. So this is still an issue today. Um.
So redlining these maps just set off this enormous amount
of um discrimination and I guess is all you can say.
And then all of the horrible effects that come out
of that that level of discrimination. But they weren’t the
(19:06):
only things that set it off. Um. The g I
Bill really kind of came in and said, well, hold on,
hold my beer, I want to mess things up to
what does hold my beer mean? It means that like
there’s some dude just kind of sitting there with like
his shirt, um just barely covering his gut drinking a beer,
watching somebody do something stupid and he says, hold my beer,
(19:26):
and then he doesn’t stupid. That’s right. Yeah, I thought
that’s what it meant. But you know me, I’m a
I’m an old man with a shirt barely covering his gut.
So I wasn’t quite short. You should spend more time
on Urban Dictionary. It should. I don’t drink much beer anymore, though,
although I do love it. What’s your favorite? I mean,
you know I love Tropicalia here out of Athens, Georgia.
(19:49):
The creature comfort. I still never had one. Well, you
should come over. I have a cagorator now on my deck.
Oh my god, I’m serving it up. But I don’t
know why I got it. I got it for friends
because I don’t drink. It’s on a beer. And then
the pandemic happened, and now I’ve just got a half
keg of beer sitting ship. All right. So yeah, the
(20:09):
g I Bill um this, you know, in theory, the
g I Bill is a great thing, and it has
done a lot of good. But in this case, it
did block access to home ownership among black Americans because,
uh they would come home from World War Two. The
g I Bill was passed. Banks are handing out mortgages
to veterans and they were actually allowed to discriminate based
(20:31):
on race. Yes, it’s shocking. Yeah, well it’s like whenever
you see that kind of thing, you’re like, this doesn’t
jibe with what I understand. Just look to the Dixiecrats,
the segregationists of the South, who were a very powerful
voting block and during the Jim Crow era, and they
were like to appease them and get them to vote
(20:52):
for something like a New Deal program or to not
do everything they could to block it. You had to say, okay,
well we’ll make sure that that blacks are excluded them
this that that that Black Americans won’t have access to
this amazing program. And they’d be like, okay, cool, let’s
let’s do it. That’s that’s that’s where a lot of
that came from. And I mean, it’s easy to blame
the Dixie Krats, but you can also be like, well,
(21:14):
you know, how hard did you try to go around
the Dixie Kratz too. I mean it was allowed to happen, yes, yeah,
by everybody, despite Francis perkins best efforts. Yeah, here’s the
stat For instance, in Mississippi in Uh, they build out
told out more than three thousand v A backed home
loans that year. Uh, and two of them were two
(21:37):
black veterans. Uh. Pretty startling. I don’t even know the
percentage on that point nine eight. Oh yeah, there’s got
to be a repeating something in there somewhere. Uh. And
you know this is a big deal because when World
War Two ended, they wanted a housing boom. There was
a lot of the supplies that would have gone to
home construction during the war went to the war effort.
(21:58):
So the f h A said, you know what, we
we need a housing boom here. We’re going to guarantee
construction loans to you like big construction companies out there.
And that’s when the suburbs popped up for the first time,
and that changed everything forever. Yeah. I mean, like they
they the birth of the suburbs were like a deliberate
(22:18):
program created by the federal government to to basically get
more people buying houses, to start that intergenerational wealth and
to create a middle class or to expand the middle
class dramatically. And they were able to do that partially
through just like when the f h came along and said, hey,
you know, we’re going to back these people’s loans as
(22:39):
long as they’re not in a red line neighborhood. That
says to the lenders, well, then you know that means
even if this person defaults, the government will buy the
loan from me. I’m gonna get paid back no matter what.
They did the same thing to these construction companies to
which created this huge housing boom. But there’s a caveat
to it. Just like with the v A loans that
said you can discriminate based on race for loans, even
(23:01):
though this is really important, Chuck. Even though the government
the v A would back the loan of a black
veteran just like they would back the loan of a
white veteran and you would be repaid no matter what,
you were still allowed to discriminate based on race. The
f h A, supposedly with the birth of the suburbs,
said we’re going to guarantee your construction loans, so you
(23:22):
can build suburbs, but you can’t sell two black Americans.
That’s another one that I don’t think there’s a smoking
gun that I saw, so I don’t know if that means,
like get the word out, like you can’t sell the
black people or else we’re not going to back these loans,
or if it was stated policy, that haven’t been able
to turn up. But it’s pretty well understood that the
(23:43):
f h A discriminated against black people basically moving to
the suburbs by not backing construction loans like that. Well. Yeah,
and there were neighborhood covenants in place that said that
black people cannot own homes in these neighborhoods they were
there were clauses that said you cannot resell your home
if you go to move, you can’t sell it to
(24:04):
a black family. Yeah, dude, if you want to be startled,
go search that um on Google Images. There’s like pictures
of these clauses and deeds that say you can’t sell
to anybody who’s not white, or even specifically, you can’t
sell anybody who’s black. It’s really jarring. Yeah, and it’s um,
I mean, it was sort of expressly understood that the
suburbs were being created for a reason, and that’s to
(24:26):
get white people out of the city to a place
where they could live among themselves. And it’s it’s something
that’s still going on. I mean, during the uh most
recent presidential election campaign, Donald Trump started playing praying on
these fears again. He was saying things like, literally, suburban
housewives of America, Biden will destroy your neighborhood and your
(24:49):
American dream. People living their suburban lifestyle dream will no
longer be bothered of fine or financially hurt by having
low income housing built in your neighborhood. And the these
are literal quotes, and it’s just he’s trying to to
garner a certain kind of vote, to be sure. But
you know, we’ll get to other stuff. I mean, Trump
(25:09):
has a long history and his and his family with
he and his father of housing discrimination. But the end
result of all this is white people. You know, people
call it white flight. They left the cities, moved to
the suburbs. People that were in the city still, these
African American families in these yellow and red line communities,
we’re sort of stuck there. So the government steps in
(25:32):
to build affordable housing, which at first were racially integrated.
There were black people and white people, but then even
the lower income white people, uh fled for the suburbs. Yeah,
because wages rose. Yeah, and they left cities in an
urban communities almost entirely black. Um. Yeah. So proportionately speaking,
there was a tremendous drain of white people from the cities.
(25:57):
I’m sure it was different on a city to city based.
As a matter of fact, I know it was. There’s
not a you can’t put a whole blanket of history
over every square inch of the United States, so different
cities had different experiences. But proportionately speaking, black people have
always made up a smaller amount of the American population overall.
(26:17):
But then if you look at the you know, percentage
of black people, say in a city in nine I
think is when it peaked. For Atlanta in particular, Um,
it’s like say black or something that’s a way larger
proportion or disproportionate amount of black people living in the
city than say, um, in the suburbs. And then conversely, Chuck,
(26:38):
when you look at the suburbs and the statistics about
race or demography in the suburbs, then it really kind
of all comes home. Yeah, and you know they’re living
in the suburbs. They decide, you know, we still need
to go into the city sometimes, so we need interstates
to get us there because we like going to concerts
occasionally or seeing a professional sports team play, right, and
(27:01):
so they built these interstates, Uh, they kind of barreled
through black neighborhoods built them there they often became a
dividing line. UH. And you know, these communities were set
up to fail. They had less frequent garbage pickup, they
had inadequate funding to keep up this public housing that
they built, UM, lower access to basic utilities, and they
(27:22):
were just in no position to to succeed basically. Now.
And I’m trying to remember what episode we talked about
prow I Go Housing UM project in in St. Louis.
I think it was the Environmental Psychology episode, if I’m
not mistaken, But that was a really good example of
this of how people pointed to that people from the
outside and we’re like, look, you can’t like black people
(27:43):
can’t take care of anything. Look at the degraded state
that this housing project is in. And it’s, like you said,
like they were set up to fail through all through
like a lack of attention, a lack of funding, UM,
just a lack of basically everything UM. And it’s it’s
that kind of seem to keep perpetuating these um uh biases.
(28:07):
For example, and this is a big one that we’ll
talk about later, that white people think if black people
move into an area, their housing values are going to
go down because of stuff like that. Yeah, I mean,
that’s sort of the I guess you’d call it the
dog whistle that everyone leans on there like, hey, we
you know, we don’t mind. Uh, we’re not bigoted at all.
(28:27):
We just want to keep our housing values up. That’s right.
That that so that one and then the the um
the myth that black people are just inherently um uncredit
worthy or not credit worthy are the two things that
seem to be used the most as cover for, like
you said, post civil rights are segregation in the United States,
(28:51):
the dog whistle, like you said, yeah, I mean, and
now is when we can talk a little bit about
um gentrification, because I mean, the way housing has worked
in this country is really fascinating and really gross in
a lot of ways, but just interesting to look at
from a bird’s eye point of view. The way people
move around and what eventually happened with the cities is that, uh,
(29:16):
you know, call them what you want, yuppies or dinks.
There’s a lot of name for upwardly mobile white people.
They’re like, Hey, I want to move into the city,
I want to be closer to to the concerts. Although
this is going to be controversial, I’m gonna get a
lot of cred for this, but one of the most
annoying trends of the last like fifteen years is building
(29:37):
all these concert venues out in the suburbs. It’s so annoying.
And I know they want their concert venues out there
so they don’t have to come into the city, but
I hate it when I one of my bands plays,
you know, thirty miles out into the suburbs. I won’t go. Yeah,
it’s kind of a pain. Although we did go out.
It’s a huge Motley Crewe thanks to that was Nita Strauss. No,
(30:02):
that’s true, So that was that was worth the trip
because it was Miley Crue and Alice Cooper. I just think,
I don’t know, I think all sports stadiums and all
concerts and you should be in the city. I’m with you.
That’s definitely traditional into the city for a big day out.
You know, when they start moving museums way out in
the exurbs and I’m done. Um. But the same thing.
(30:23):
You could make the same case. When they built the
highways and everything, they just kind of built them through
black communities. That’s what they did with with the stadiums
and all that as well too. Well, no, that’s true.
You know, think about Braves. They just plunked Braves Stadium
ted Turner out just right in the middle of Mechanicsville,
which is a historically black community, and said, everybody moves
(30:45):
move aside, and don’t harass all the white people who
come down to see the game on you know, same day.
We should do I mean, I love sports, but we
should do a There’s such a problematic side to pro
sports from that too. Um, these billionaire owners is using
city money to build new stadiums when their other stadium
is just like ten years old or whatever. That is
(31:06):
definitely problematic. It’s crazy, what a crazy amount of waste
that produces a loan just that alone. Yeah, um, alright,
so where was I? All right? Uh, white dinks are
moving into the neighborhoods again in the city because they
want good Thai food, and uh, these neighborhoods become a
(31:28):
little more attractive the more white people move into, other
white people to move in, and they start moving in
and increasing numbers, and the houses are generally renovated or
improved over time or sometimes they might bulldoze you know,
a pretty decent house with good bones just to build
you know, the biggest house possible on their postage stamp
(31:48):
of a lot. It’s crazy how close they build these
mammoth houses together. I’m sure it happens everywhere. Atlanta’s got
a real problem with it. But what happens is, you know,
home user going to increase, that’s gonna raise taxes on
the other homes around them. A lot of time, those
other homes are owned by UM, longtime lower income residents,
(32:10):
most times people of color, it becomes unsustainable. UM. We
have a great, great program here in my neighborhood and
east like called Neighbor in Need. That is UH Emily
and I have four main charities that we work with
and give to every year, and Neighbor in Need is
one of them because we like to stay really locally focused.
But Neighbor in Need basically addresses this head on and
(32:33):
they you know, raise a lot of money and they
use that money to take care of these people. UM,
if they hear about a neighbor that’s like, you know,
in need, like an older African American couple who’s been
here for forty years, they’re having to pay way too
much in property taxes so they can’t afford a roof
on their house. They’ll go put a roof on their house,
or they’ll pay their power bill, um whatever. I mean.
(32:56):
It’s a really really great grassroots organization, so UM very
happy to be working with them and uh, you know,
trying to fight the sort of ills of gentrification overall. Yeah,
that’s neat because it also draws the community together to
help the longest term residents of that community rather than
that whole everybody’s on their own kind of thing, which
(33:17):
I’m sure most people who move into a community like
you know that is gentrifying probably would want to do.
They just don’t know how to do it, or they
don’t know how to contact anybody. People don’t just usually
go over to their neighbor’s house and knock on the
door and introduce themselves anymore. So that’s cool. Yeah, and
you know this is uh sometimes they are able to
sell their house for a pretty good you know, the
(33:39):
housing value does increase, so they’re able to get more
money than they might have before, which can be a
nice windfall. But I’ve also seen firsthand, literally with my neighbors, UM,
these sort of predatory home builders that come in there,
and while they think it’s probably decent money compared to
what they thought they could get, it’s still a lower
(34:00):
than what they would offer a white family. But even
if they were treated fairly and they walked away with
the big windfall from the sale, um and you know,
had a lot of money to retire on, that community
was still fractured. You know, the people who are having
to move and their neighbors who already had to move
may have lived there for generations or even you know,
(34:22):
just their whole lives and they formed a community. And
it’s not like that whole community just moves elsewhere together.
They all go to different communities, often towards the end
of their life, and it leads to alienation, isolation. Um.
It’s a that I mean, that’s a real problem. Even
even if they are being paid well for the the
houses they’re they’re being bought out of because they don’t
(34:43):
necessarily want to move, but they just can’t afford the
taxes anymore. Um. So there’s there’s that’s a big issue
with gentrification. It’s tough to get around sounds like that
neighborhood group that you’re talking about what’s the name again
that they that they’ve they’ve figured out a way or
round it. Do you know what there needs to be
dude is uh and this is chuck twenty two stuff. Okay.
(35:08):
I think if you live in a house long enough,
you shouldn’t have to pay property tax anymore. Yeah, I
think there are I mean, I have to be a lot.
Maybe it’s like twenty years or something, but that would
solve a lot of this problem. There is zero reason
why some elderly African American couple that’s been in a
home for forty years needs to be paying taxes at
(35:28):
all on that house, much less these jacked up rates. Yeah. No,
I think that’s that’s totally true. Um. Yeah, I think
there’s a if it’s not law, there’s a proposal in
Georgia to do that once you’re sixty five or something
like that. Maybe. I mean, I’m ad about property tax anyway,
just because it’s I don’t know, we pay so much
in taxes. Then you finally scrape up enough to buy
(35:50):
a place that’s your own, and the government’s then like, well,
if you’re going to have to pay tax on that,
do right? You know, I know, it’s seems unfair. Also,
you shouldn’t have to pay full price for coffee anywhere
once you reach sixty five or old agreed, especially after
three pm. Uh, All right, well, should we take a
break and then talk about the Fair Housing Act, which
(36:11):
solved everything. It totally did. It’s all great now, alright,
we’ll be right back up to this. Alright, spoiler, So
(36:41):
we ruined things. They passed the Fair Housing Act, and
racism has been solved in America. That’s right. Ninety eight
And we talked about the Fair Housing Act a little bit, UM,
and you know, it’s a good thing they passed it.
It did banned discrimination in housing practices officially, but it
just led to a little trickier way to get around
(37:03):
stuff by UM doing it on the download. Yeah, and
that is that is for if you’re studying systemic racisicism
in the United States. The passing of like the Voting
Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act UH,
and some other legislation UM during the sixties really changed
things in that no longer was the government in the
(37:27):
business of enforcing discrimination and segregation UM. And also now
you had recourse in the courts if you were discriminated
against UM. But it didn’t just a race racism in
the United States that that task of enforcing basically white
supremacy and racial discrimination and segregation and all the stuff
(37:48):
that comes along with it fell to um lesser institutions
in everyday people who carried out. And when you’re talking
about something like housing discrimination, UM, the people who now
are best able to continue enforcing segregation and discrimination in
the United States are people like lenders and real estate
(38:10):
agents and even people who are deciding where to buy
a house. Um. Everyday americans buying the house UM often
make choices that they don’t necessarily think our racist, and
they might they probably don’t think that they’re racist, but
they’re still they’re housing choices often reflect um inadvertent or
(38:32):
otherwise racial choices or choices along racial lines. Yeah, and
this you know this next bit, we’re we’re sort of
busting on real estate professionals a little bit. I have
very good friends that are real estate agents. They’re great
people for the most part. We don’t mean to just
paint everything with the big broadbrush, but the industry does
(38:54):
have a history of it, for sure. Yeah, and we
have to talk about it. So there was one in
the in the eighties, there was one practice called block
busting god um not having anything to do with video stores,
I know it was the eighties, but um literally busting
up a block. When a real estate agent would work
or sort of act as a speculator and say, either, hey,
(39:19):
you know what you know, there are some black families
that are moving into the area. You may want to
think about selling just to protect your home values before
they fall. Or they might sell to a black family
and introduce them to the area so they could then
turn around, um, buy these houses from the white residents
and then sell them to the black residents or you know,
(39:41):
hopefully black residents, but at a big mark up. Yeah,
which has insult to injury, Like they created a basically
white flight from an area just from the rumor of
black people moving in, and then they move black people
in and sell them sell to them at wildly inflated rates,
which is crazy. And I read one story to Chuck
of one of these real estate agents that was doing blockbusting.
(40:03):
They would have a black dad with the stroller walk
around the neighborhood, um like he had moved in or
was thinking of moving in or whatever, and apparently just
that was enough to get people to start to sell.
And again you’re like, you know, this is this is
terrible that real estate agents are doing it. But the
fact that it was effective really says a lot about
every day you know, white homeowners too. And also again
(40:27):
like it it doesn’t mean like that these white homeowners
hate black people like they were worried about their property values,
because it’s such an embedded myth in America that when
a black family moves into a neighborhood, they’re so bad
at taking care of their their house and their home
values that it’s going to drag the home values down
in throughout the entire neighborhood. And so everybody needed to
(40:49):
get out before that happened. That’s that’s again, that’s the
definition of systemic racism. Yeah, and you know this has
been busted up to a large degree officially, but up
until nineteen fifty, the official policy of the National Association
of Real Estate Boards UM said a realtor should never
be instrumental and introducing into a neighborhood members of any
(41:13):
race or nationality whose presence will clearly be detrimental to
property values in that neighborhood. That was like literal policy
up until nineteen fifty, and then there was a study
in two thousand six by the National Fair Housing Alliance
that said, and this is something else called steering, which
is not blockbusting, but it’s like, hey, like we want
(41:34):
to show you houses over here in this neighborhood because
we think it’s a better fit for you. Uh. And
you know here the financial instruments available to get mortgages
for you and maybe not just for everybody. And black
people historically have not given the full picture. They’re maybe
not shown white neighborhoods. Uh. And the study found that
steering occurred sent of the time when researchers posed as
(41:58):
buyers and we’re shown homes like these sort of undercover operations. Yeah,
and steering occurs, um not just you know, if you’re
if you’re a black home buyer, you’re not just going
to be shown a black neighborhoods. If you’re a white
home buyer, they’re probably not going to take you to
black neighborhoods either. So through this process of racial steering,
this is basically enforcing patterns of segregation still in the
(42:22):
United States. Yeah, there was another study by Brookings. They
found that black owned homes are undervalued by an average
of forty thou dollars. And this is one that’s controlled
by all the factors like home quality and amenities and everything. Exclamation, Yeah,
it’s forty eight grand literally because it is a home
(42:43):
owned by a black individual. When they control for amenities
where the home is the size of the house, everything
else about the house. If you compare apples to apples,
and it’s the same house owned by a white person
and the other house that’s exactly the same home by
a black person, the black person’s house is going to
be forty thousand dollars less in value just because it’s
(43:05):
owned by a black person. And that’s that’s just basically
that whole idea of um that black people drag home
values down becoming a self fulfilling prophecy, and um that
those same home values are all of that undervaluing that
same Brooking study found amounts to a loss of about
(43:27):
a hundred and fifty six billion dollars for Black Americans. Yeah,
for wealth they were not able to achieve. And uh,
you know, we talked a lot about the Great Recession
in the mortgage crisis kind of when it was going
on and shortly thereafter, Um, Black Americans back then were
likelier to receive subprime mortgages. These were the loans that
(43:47):
were really expensive to repay. They had higher fees, they
had higher interest rates, um they also had mechanisms built
in if you were a black loan owner that made
it easier for the lender to seize their collateral with
usually meant their house and so like, it makes sense
that if you are taking a greater risk lending to
somebody as the bank, you should be able to get
(44:10):
more money for it, right, But the problem is is
like subprime mortgages were doled out to black homeowners or
black home buyers at way higher rates than they were
to white home buyers. And that’s a problem in and
of itself if the if the rates are less favorable
and it’s easier for the bank to repossess the house.
But especially it proved to be a big problem during
(44:32):
the mortgage crisis when that bubble bursts, because if you
were a low income Black American, you were probably denied
a mortgage of any kind. But even if you were
a middle to high income black home buyer, you probably
got a subprime mortgage compared to say, a white buyer
(44:52):
with the same criteria that you had to offer. UM.
So that meant that when those foreclosures happened because the
bubble bursts, Black Americans, especially UM, wealthier Black Americans, were
disproportionately impacted, so that that subprime mortgage debacle erased way
more Black intergenerational wealth than it did for white people. Yeah,
(45:15):
I have my last three exclamation points. Stat during the
subprime mortgage crisis, there was a study that found black
and Latino families, because you know we’ve mentioned people of
color a few times, is not just solely African American
families affected? Um, And the study found that black and
Latino families making two hundred thousand dollars a year or more,
(45:39):
we’re still more likely to receive a subprime loan than
white families making less than thirty thousand dollars a year.
That nuts, and six point two percent of white people
with a credit score of six sixty or higher received
a subprime mortgage compared to twenty one point four percent
of black borrowers with that same credit score. So, Chuck, UM,
(46:00):
there’s a big problem with all this. And it’s kind
of like you said at the beginning, like when you’re
talking about race and especially discrimination by race. Um, people
tend to be like, especially white people tend to be like, well,
I don’t know about that. I mean, there’s a lot
of other factors involved, Like it could be anything. So
you really have to kind of prove that this is
a thing. And ever since the federal government got out
(46:22):
of discriminating on paper, um, it’s gotten a lot harder
to track. So back in the seventies, the Department of
Housing and Urban Development, they have an office of Research
and Policy. They came up with the way of testing
this to control for as many variables as possible and
just see if it’s just race that is being discriminated against.
(46:43):
And it’s called paired testing. It’s actually pretty clever from
what I understand. Yeah, that’s when you get to equally
qualified candidates to apply for homeown or to go to
a real estate agent and like look at apartments or
houses or whatever. Uh. They are trained to basically be
as identical as they can be to one another, to
(47:04):
respond to the questions in the same way, have the
same credit history, same job status, same income level, and
basically sort of be duplicates of one another except for
their skin color. Uh, they’re not working together so they
don’t even know, um, like there’s no bias there even
because they’re not like paired together, right, They’re not like,
oh they got too, I’m gonna try this with them.
Like they don’t. They don’t meet one another, they don’t
(47:26):
interact with one another. They’re just doing their thing and
they’re just trained to do it exactly the same way.
The only distinction between them is their their race. Right.
And so the Urban Institute, which is a think tank,
UM study this and they came up with kind of
four big points from this paired testing UH exercise, which
(47:47):
is UH. They found about discrimination and housing vouchers that
are intended to let low income renters choose from a
bigger pool a rental housing uh than the realtors even showed. UM,
there were fewer homes and apartments available to minorities like
we were, like I kind of mentioned earlier, like just
a smaller like no, you know, we’ll just look here. Yeah,
(48:09):
the racial steering usually results in fewer, fewer places being shown. Um.
They were steered again to primarily um, you know, neighborhoods
of their own ethnicity, and then given less information overall.
Like I mentioned about mortgage products, UM, different kinds of loans,
different kinds of ways of structuring a loan, just not
(48:31):
given that information at all. Right, Um, so the they
also found this paired testing turns up very frequently that um,
it’s not just even people of colors, not just black Americans,
but it’s people of color in general. But um, it’s
not even just down to to racial discrimination. There’s also
a lot of discrimination against people who are differently abled.
(48:53):
They actually sometimes fair worse than minorities when it comes
to housing discrimination. Paired testing is has turned that up
as well. So it’s still the upshot of all this
is that it’s still a problem and there is like
some silver lining to it. Um the I think. Uh.
That same think tank, the Urban Institute, also turned up
(49:14):
that there’s been a general decline overall. It’s not huge,
but it’s it’s noteworthy. It’s remarkable. Um of preference in
favoritism toward white white buyers over buyers of of like
minority buyers by about five percent between and two thousand.
It went from about so And there does seem to
(49:38):
be a general decline in racism or discrimination, I should say, uh,
in the United States. So that’s the good news, is
that America seems to be getting less racist. The bad
news is that America is still racist. Like, we still
have a long way to go. It’s, as the study
put the studies findings confirm a hard truth that America’s
(49:58):
long journey to end housing discrimination remains unfinished. Um. And
so there’s still a long way to go. And I
think it’s really important for everybody to realize that there’s
a long history of discriminating against people of color, but
also very specifically Black Americans, and that it’s still going
on today. And even though it’s in a slightly lesser form,
it’s very important if it’s going on at all, that
(50:21):
we we erase it. That’s right, agreed, You got anything else?
Nothing else? All right, Chuck, Well then that’s housing discrimination.
And since I said all right, Chuck, it’s time for
a listener mail. Well instead of reading a specific listener mail.
And because this episode is a little heavy, we thought
we’d have a little fun. Um. We got maybe more
(50:45):
emails than we have for any other episode in our
history down literally about Neco wavers Um. A lot of
support for the Neco for people, and a lot of
condemnation for yucking yums without giving having tried them. You
were all correct. We honor you all, and we’re gonna
Josh got some sent them to me. We’re gonna try
(51:06):
some necka wafers on the air. Listen there. I just
realized I think I made a grave mistake by not
having any water in the basement. Yeah, I just realized
this as well. Do you have a pipe to tap into?
I think we should eat the same color. Oh really? Okay,
all right, so we can kind of go, you know,
nose to nose. I’m never open one these before. Okay, exactly, already,
(51:29):
so nasty. You know, everybody was right about yucking people’s
yams in general, but also because we hadn’t tried them.
So that’s why we’re doing this. I mean, they’re just
falling apart when I opened the package. So to strike one,
I’ve got a mess on my table. What color are
we gonna do? I mean it’s hard to tell. This
looks sort of like a very pale yellow. That’s the
(51:51):
only whole one in my hand. Pale yellow. I don’t
even have that. I got white. I’ve got orange it
maybe maybe it is white, Okay, I’ll call it. Wait wait, wait, wait,
I might have a palio when I do, I do it. Okay,
apology to the people of Mesophonia, but here we go.
Oh my god, it’s just like it’s like a flatter um,
(52:18):
bigger candy heart. The conversation hart, it’s not bam like okay,
very hard, the crunches. I think what probably gets people.
I mean, the taste isn’t bad, but it’s not great. No,
they’re not great, But I mean, who’s crazy for conversation hearts,
sickos and weirdos? You know, the same goes for me. Well,
(52:40):
what’s the verdict? Would you ever buy and eat Neca
wafers after this? I will tell you what. I will
probably eat the rest of these. And I like sugar.
I like as atter fact, I’m gonna do one of
the gray ones real quick. What about you? Uh no, no,
that is not my up my alley. But I’m gonna
(53:02):
try one of those chocolates because those where I think
recommended steer clear, the dark gray ones, the liquorice ones.
They’re awful. It tastes Oh no, it is slightly different. Yeah,
I get a little hint up cocoa. I’ve come around
a little bit to the liquorice ones. At the end Wow,
I’m turning into an eco weirdo. Actually, the chocolate aren’t bad.
(53:23):
What about pink? Try pink? Well, that’s um, this is
winter green. I think people are so disgusted right now. Yeah,
this is all right. We’re literally the last two people
listening to this. Man, I think we should wrap this. Okay. Well, um,
if you want to tell us that we shouldn’t yuck
everybody’s jump, especially about something we haven’t tried, we need
(53:44):
to hear that whenever we do that. It’s totally true
and totally right. Thank you everybody who wrote him. You
can get in touch with us at Stuff podcast at
I heart radio dot calm Stuff. You should know it
is pretty action of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(54:05):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H
Older Episo
Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I’m Josh Clark,
and there’s Charles W Chuck Bryan over there, and this
is stuff you should know. Um the man oh man addition,
(00:25):
do you know what I love about this topic is
that it’s not just a bunch of like ranting about
how we think things are and how people think things are.
It’s like so studied and statistic heavy that you can
talk about how things are and then say, and here’s
(00:45):
the proof exactly, here’s a lot of data to back
it up. It’s really great. I love it when they
dovetail like this. Yeah. I get the impression, though, UM
that you when you’re talking about the studying race and
especially in America like you are, you have to back
it up with data like people are like, oh, yeah,
I don’t I don’t know about that. But um, I
want to give a shout out to actually to um
(01:08):
uh scholars both sell sociologists of race. UM Professor Villnabashi
Treatler from UC Santa Barbara and Professor Tricia Rose of
Brown University both are experts on this stuff and they
helped me out big time with this and some other
research on on racism I’ve done, um and they Dr
(01:28):
Bashi Treatler said, hey, make sure you mentioned this hashtag
we have going called site hashtag. Sorry, and I’m making
the hashtag symbol like justin Timberlake hashtag site black women
ce I t e black women. UM, and that leads
you to all sorts of good often overlooked research by
black scholars. Um, who are women that don’t always get
(01:51):
a lot of credit. So I’m glad you told me
about that one. I wanted to tell everybody else. So
when you, uh, that was a stutter when he said
so so sociologists, you didn’t mean they were just mediocre sociologists. No,
I was. I was sociologist. I could see how that
would be confusing. I was doing my impression of Phil
Collins saying sociologist so so studio. Yeah, well that’s the
(02:16):
last joke we’re gonna tell you. Oh yeah, probably. I
was warned by Dr Bashi Treatler not to do our
usual stick when we’re talking about race stuff, and I
was like, well, I mean, we we can handle ourselves.
She said. I I listened to your stuff. I listened
to the Braws episode just trust me on this. It’s like,
all right, So then that means the housing discrimination episode
(02:38):
officially starts. Now, that’s right. So that’s what we’re talking about, dude.
Housing discrimination and um uh in the United States, and
there is a very long history of housing discrimination. And
you might say, like, well, that really sucks. That sucks
that people have trouble buying a home or maybe they
get less favorable terms on their loans just because of
(02:59):
their race, and that does suck. That’s absolutely true. But
it’s even worse than that because in the United States,
one of the biggest ways of growing wealth intergenerationally, like
over the course of generations within a single family is
through a house. Yeah, I mean it’s sometimes people don’t
(03:19):
have a ton of money to invest in the stock market.
Some people think the stock market is not something to trust.
But one thing that has always been fairly reliable in
this country, you know, say, for a few moments in history,
is real estate and the idea that if you scrap
up and save enough money for a down payment for
a home, that house will eventually be worth quite a
(03:42):
bit more years later, and you can sell it and
use that extra windfall of cash to invest in the
stock market or to pass down to your kids so
they can then get in the housing market sooner than
they might have and then it just becomes a cycle
where it just builds wealth. Yeah, Like the average family
(04:02):
in America has most of their net worth tied up
in their house, and then you know, when it comes
time to sell it and the house is paid off,
that’s a lot of money. And then when you kick
the bucket, your kids get that money and maybe they
get a better house, and it just keeps growing and growing.
So if you put up barriers to housing, you’re actually
putting up barriers to passing along intergenerational wealth. And as
(04:24):
a big, big problem in America. UM Still today, I
saw a study from I think Brookings that found that,
um the median. Yeah, brooking study said that the median
net worth of a white family in America is a
hundred and seventy one thousand dollars. The median net worth
(04:48):
of a black family in America is seventeen thousand, one
hundred and fifty dollars, about a ten of what the
median is for white people. And that is largely because
of housing discriminate in the history of housing discrimination in
this country. Yeah, and as far as history goes, you know,
it started with literal racist laws where they said, if
(05:10):
you’re a black person or a black family, you cannot
live here. Um. That went on for a while, and
then those laws were sort of altered to the Jim
Crows Separate but Equal era, where they said, you know what, Um,
we’ll say things are better, but it’s really the same
effect in the end. And then they got rid of
(05:30):
those laws and said, all right, now we’ve really passed
the meaningful legislation, and now we can just racially discriminate
on the down low and very creative ways. Yeah, that’s
basically the pattern that it’s followed. Um. And what kind
of stuck out to meet Chuck is is that before
about nine hundred, before like the rise of like industrialization
(05:53):
to a really legitimate degree in the United States, like,
there wasn’t not nearly as much segregation as we saw
starting around nineteen especially in the North, because if you
had a trade or a craft in the North and
you were an African American, there’s a really good chance
that you were going to be serving white people as
well as black people, right and because you usually were
(06:16):
very closely your home was tied close to your shop,
you often lived above it if you were like a
cobbler or something like that. Um, you made live next
door to a white baker or something like that. So
the there wasn’t a lot of segregation until industrialization came
along and there was a big call for labor, which
drew a lot of African Americans, a lot of Black
(06:38):
Americans out of the South up to the north. And
all of a sudden, all of those people who were
living in integrated neighborhoods, all those white people I should say,
had had a problem with this influx of black migration
from the South to the north, and they responded with
a lot of really disgusting violence. Yeah. I mean, we’ve
talked about some of these, um race incidents and race
(07:01):
riots and race almost race wars really uh here and
there on the show, and they’re always hard to talk about.
But that was just sort of the reality of things
at the time. Um. In the nineteen thirties, the New
Deal comes along, and this is when legislation starts to
kind of kick in. When the government stepped in and said,
you know what, we think we should make it easier
(07:23):
for people to own homes. We really want to boost
home ownership because that’s a boon for the economy of
the country. And we’re going to create the home Owners
Loan Corporation, which is going to help people refinance their mortgages.
But we need some criteria here to sort of establish
a uniform way of like how to how to dole
(07:45):
out this assistance. And they reckoned, let’s let’s look at
every population of forty or more and let’s create a
color coded map that’s based on riskiness of these loans.
And they said, you know, they talked to real estate brokers,
they talk to bankers, and they said, help us out,
help us draw these boundaries, and they came up with
a one, two, three, four color graded system. Right, yeah,
(08:07):
that’s right. Because again this was like long before credit
scores were developed, so you couldn’t really look at you know,
if somebody came into your bank to ask for a loan,
you couldn’t be like, well, you’re your your credit scores this,
So I’m not gonna look at that start. I don’t
know we should do an episode on if we haven’t already.
I don’t think for sure. Um, but yeah, so the
four color codes they had were also um delineated by
(08:29):
grades Grade A, B, C, and D. Grade A was
the most desirable neighborhood. They were usually homogeneous, meaning white. Um,
there were um lots of professionals living in there. Grade
B was maybe a step down, but still largely homogeneous,
if not totally homogeneous, and they were considered still desirable.
And then it started to get into the lower grades
(08:50):
grades C and D, and C was um, I think
colored yellow on the map, right, Yeah, the first two
were green and blue, and then Grade C was rated
as declining and colored yellow and that sort of. In fact,
I think it even said infiltration of a lower grade
population in the document, which you don’t have to be
(09:13):
a genius to figure out what they were saying there.
It means people of color were moving in. And then
finally you end up with the color red Grade D,
which is least desirable. Um, very densely populated areas almost
always communities of color. Right. So um, the h O
l C created these maps, and then um, along came
(09:36):
the Federal Housing Authority and they said, well, we need
similar maps because we’re not we’re not here to help
stem the tide of foreclosures. We’re actually here to generate
new home ownership among Americans. Um, but we still have
the same issue. We got to figure out who’s credit
worthy and who’s not. So we’re going to base it
on where the people live. And they basically made identical
maps to the h O l C maps, and so
(09:58):
they probably used them. Right, there’s a lot of debate.
I don’t think anyone’s found the smoking gun yet. But
if you take an h O l C map in
an f h A map and you put them over
one another, they’re basically the same thing. And I I
it’s kind of all. It’s up for the debate still.
But the the the upshot was that because of these maps, Um,
(10:22):
if you lived in one of these red and often
yellow communities, they wouldn’t lend to you, for um, for
a new mortgage or even a second mortgage to say,
remodel your home. And they also wouldn’t assist you with
refinancing your existing mortgage, which means you’re subject to foreclosure.
And if you were in a red or yellow community,
(10:43):
you were probably um black or a person of color
or some other ethnic minority. And UM, that means that
they were shut out of this enormous housing boom that
generated a tremendous amount of prosperity immediately after the New
Deal in World War Two. As we’ll see, so African
Americans were left out of or on the fringes of
(11:04):
the New Deal anyway. And this is where we get
to shout out Francis Perkins. Perkins again, which is it’s
fun to now that we know so much about her,
to continually shout her out. But she did a lot
of work arguing in favor of inclusion for black people
in the New Deal. Um, I guess you know, sometimes successfully,
sometimes not. But at the end of the day, the
(11:25):
f h A imposed these rules through the New Deal. Uh.
Their maps were just like the UH the h O
l C. And the process of excluding these groups because
they were colored red was called redlining. That is that
like the where that whole term comes from. That’s exactly
where it comes from. So now today, any any time
you’re discriminated against, whether it’s buying insurance or anything like that, um,
(11:49):
based on your race or say your community. Um, it’s
called redlining now. But that’s where it grew out of
those h O l C maps and f A J maps. UM.
And I mean they would use terms and like their
their handbooks that like these communities had quote undesirable racial
or nationality groups in them, so you couldn’t you couldn’t
lend them any money or whatever. Um. And it was
(12:11):
I mean like this is still like a really big
problem today. Yeah, I mean back then basically and still today.
In many cases, that leaves you with a couple of
options as a person of color. You can rent uh
forever um often times back then and still now from
a white landlord who doesn’t live anywhere near that community,
(12:31):
not always, but usually, or just pay for the home
in cash, which is a stretch for anybody. Uh, it’s
it’s tough to do unless you’re like wealthy. And there
were there were, I have to say there were black
owned banks. But there was nine black own banks in
the entire United States in the thirties. So that is
a place where you could turn to if you’re lucky
enough to have one in your area. But that that
(12:53):
was not a solution to the general population for Black Americans. Yeah,
and like you said, also affected their ability to get
second mortgages, to do home improvements or to like expand
on their house and upgrade it, remodel it. So that
means that the properties are gonna deteriorate and decline over
(13:13):
the years, and it’s just it’s part of that systemic
racist cycle that is just prevalent. Yeah, because still today, eventually,
over time people from the outside looking in say, look,
black people can’t even take care of their communities. Look
at look at how their houses are. Um, just as
a result of this. That is definitely like the definition
(13:33):
of systemic racism for sure. It’s just by the way
into the structures. If you hear dogs barking, My dogs
are upstairs and they’re just very excited about this topic. Yeah,
and I don’t know what’s going on there, but they’re
not going to shut up. So let’s say we press on.
We’ll press on. Should we take a break, then press on.
We’re going to press on like some lee nails right
(13:53):
after a break. How about that? All right, it sounds good.
(14:19):
All right, we’re back and look, these things look amazing
on me. Yeah, they’re very nice. There’s a little bit
of cuticle showing. I didn’t put them right up against it,
but it’s still it’s passable. Well, I think if you
paint them just right, that’s not so noticeable. Right, fill ins,
that’s what I need. I need to get some fill ins.
So back to the topic at hand, joking is over. Um,
(14:43):
so here’s the deal. There’s, like you said, a lot
of debate whether or not or I don’t think we
said this part, whether or not the lenders actually use
these maps because these were government maps from government programs.
It’s not like they said, here, banks have these and
use these. Uh. If you look at the statistics, it
seems like they probably got their hands on some of
(15:03):
these maps. It does. And also, don’t forget the government
figured out, you know, how to draw these maps for
every city over forty people from the lenders, from the banks,
from the Yeah, so they knew this anyway, but now
the government has basically said it is okay to do this, um.
And so so yeah, if you if you look at
the outcome of this redlining, these red line maps, um,
(15:28):
it’s it’s really hard to say, no, this didn’t happen
like this definitely didn’t make it out of government hands
like forts here just great, let’s trade off. Between ninety
four and nineteen sixty two, over of all the federally
backed mortgages that were issued in the United States went
(15:49):
to white buyers. Between four and nineteen sixty two, that’s right,
because of this black ownership since then and can tinuing
today is lagged behind white homeownership in America, and seventeen
just a few short years ago, of black Americans own
their homes versus seventy of white Americans. And then the
(16:13):
other problem with redlining a community is you basically put
a pox on it. It’s cursed, because that means that
those houses are not going to get any kind of
attention UM, and so they’re going to continue to deteriorate.
And if you live in this community, as far as
a banker is concerned, you are a huge credit risk. Right,
And so still today UM sev of the neighborhoods that
(16:35):
were originally redlined in those maps are our redline UM
low income communities today, And which is I mean, that’s
pretty surprising. And I also saw that UM study found
that homes and red line neighborhoods we’re still worth less
than half of those in green neighborhoods. Yeah, and here’s
(16:57):
the one. I marked these as stats with an exclamation point,
just that’s how excited I get. But the ones that
I’m really floored by, I don’t even write anything except
for three exclamation points. I’ve got three exclamation points by
that of back federally back mortgages. For sure, that is
definitely one. Um here’s mine. If if you might say, well,
(17:18):
what about variables man and education level and income level
and stuff like that, Like you gotta factor all that in.
That’s a whole other side conversation as far as systemic
racism and being able to go to good schools and
afford a good education and get a good job and
all that. So just park that to the side. But
if you control for all those variables, college educated black
(17:40):
Americans are still less likely to own their home than
white Americans without a high school diploma. Yeah, That’s That’s
what really gets you is when they they’re like, well,
let us just control for all these factors and only
variable that remains is the race of the people applying
for a owner owning a home, and it’s still the case.
(18:02):
That’s when it’s like, well this is indisputable. Actually yeah,
and you know you can put a price on this.
Red Fen did a study um just last year in
twenty that black American families missed out on the opportunity
to accumulate an average of two hundred and twelve thousand
dollars of you know what, we’re talking about that intergenerational
(18:22):
wealth per household over the last forty years, just over
the last forty years. I mean we’re talking about stuff
that started, I mean back in the days of slavery,
but really started to take off in the nineteen thirties
with the New Deal. And this is just since nineteen
eighty they’ve lost out on that amount of money per household.
That’s nuts and still today, Chuck, here’s another one that
gets me. Black American is five times likelier to own
(18:45):
a home in a red line neighborhood than a white
American is. So this is still an issue today. Um.
So redlining these maps just set off this enormous amount
of um discrimination and I guess is all you can say.
And then all of the horrible effects that come out
of that that level of discrimination. But they weren’t the
(19:06):
only things that set it off. Um. The g I
Bill really kind of came in and said, well, hold on,
hold my beer, I want to mess things up to
what does hold my beer mean? It means that like
there’s some dude just kind of sitting there with like
his shirt, um just barely covering his gut drinking a beer,
watching somebody do something stupid and he says, hold my beer,
(19:26):
and then he doesn’t stupid. That’s right. Yeah, I thought
that’s what it meant. But you know me, I’m a
I’m an old man with a shirt barely covering his gut.
So I wasn’t quite short. You should spend more time
on Urban Dictionary. It should. I don’t drink much beer anymore, though,
although I do love it. What’s your favorite? I mean,
you know I love Tropicalia here out of Athens, Georgia.
(19:49):
The creature comfort. I still never had one. Well, you
should come over. I have a cagorator now on my deck.
Oh my god, I’m serving it up. But I don’t
know why I got it. I got it for friends
because I don’t drink. It’s on a beer. And then
the pandemic happened, and now I’ve just got a half
keg of beer sitting ship. All right. So yeah, the
(20:09):
g I Bill um this, you know, in theory, the
g I Bill is a great thing, and it has
done a lot of good. But in this case, it
did block access to home ownership among black Americans because,
uh they would come home from World War Two. The
g I Bill was passed. Banks are handing out mortgages
to veterans and they were actually allowed to discriminate based
(20:31):
on race. Yes, it’s shocking. Yeah, well it’s like whenever
you see that kind of thing, you’re like, this doesn’t
jibe with what I understand. Just look to the Dixiecrats,
the segregationists of the South, who were a very powerful
voting block and during the Jim Crow era, and they
were like to appease them and get them to vote
(20:52):
for something like a New Deal program or to not
do everything they could to block it. You had to say, okay,
well we’ll make sure that that blacks are excluded them
this that that that Black Americans won’t have access to
this amazing program. And they’d be like, okay, cool, let’s
let’s do it. That’s that’s that’s where a lot of
that came from. And I mean, it’s easy to blame
the Dixie Krats, but you can also be like, well,
(21:14):
you know, how hard did you try to go around
the Dixie Kratz too. I mean it was allowed to happen, yes, yeah,
by everybody, despite Francis perkins best efforts. Yeah, here’s the
stat For instance, in Mississippi in Uh, they build out
told out more than three thousand v A backed home
loans that year. Uh, and two of them were two
(21:37):
black veterans. Uh. Pretty startling. I don’t even know the
percentage on that point nine eight. Oh yeah, there’s got
to be a repeating something in there somewhere. Uh. And
you know this is a big deal because when World
War Two ended, they wanted a housing boom. There was
a lot of the supplies that would have gone to
home construction during the war went to the war effort.
(21:58):
So the f h A said, you know what, we
we need a housing boom here. We’re going to guarantee
construction loans to you like big construction companies out there.
And that’s when the suburbs popped up for the first time,
and that changed everything forever. Yeah. I mean, like they
they the birth of the suburbs were like a deliberate
(22:18):
program created by the federal government to to basically get
more people buying houses, to start that intergenerational wealth and
to create a middle class or to expand the middle
class dramatically. And they were able to do that partially
through just like when the f h came along and said, hey,
you know, we’re going to back these people’s loans as
(22:39):
long as they’re not in a red line neighborhood. That
says to the lenders, well, then you know that means
even if this person defaults, the government will buy the
loan from me. I’m gonna get paid back no matter what.
They did the same thing to these construction companies to
which created this huge housing boom. But there’s a caveat
to it. Just like with the v A loans that
said you can discriminate based on race for loans, even
(23:01):
though this is really important, Chuck. Even though the government
the v A would back the loan of a black
veteran just like they would back the loan of a
white veteran and you would be repaid no matter what,
you were still allowed to discriminate based on race. The
f h A, supposedly with the birth of the suburbs,
said we’re going to guarantee your construction loans, so you
(23:22):
can build suburbs, but you can’t sell two black Americans.
That’s another one that I don’t think there’s a smoking
gun that I saw, so I don’t know if that means,
like get the word out, like you can’t sell the
black people or else we’re not going to back these loans,
or if it was stated policy, that haven’t been able
to turn up. But it’s pretty well understood that the
(23:43):
f h A discriminated against black people basically moving to
the suburbs by not backing construction loans like that. Well. Yeah,
and there were neighborhood covenants in place that said that
black people cannot own homes in these neighborhoods they were
there were clauses that said you cannot resell your home
if you go to move, you can’t sell it to
(24:04):
a black family. Yeah, dude, if you want to be startled,
go search that um on Google Images. There’s like pictures
of these clauses and deeds that say you can’t sell
to anybody who’s not white, or even specifically, you can’t
sell anybody who’s black. It’s really jarring. Yeah, and it’s um,
I mean, it was sort of expressly understood that the
suburbs were being created for a reason, and that’s to
(24:26):
get white people out of the city to a place
where they could live among themselves. And it’s it’s something
that’s still going on. I mean, during the uh most
recent presidential election campaign, Donald Trump started playing praying on
these fears again. He was saying things like, literally, suburban
housewives of America, Biden will destroy your neighborhood and your
(24:49):
American dream. People living their suburban lifestyle dream will no
longer be bothered of fine or financially hurt by having
low income housing built in your neighborhood. And the these
are literal quotes, and it’s just he’s trying to to
garner a certain kind of vote, to be sure. But
you know, we’ll get to other stuff. I mean, Trump
(25:09):
has a long history and his and his family with
he and his father of housing discrimination. But the end
result of all this is white people. You know, people
call it white flight. They left the cities, moved to
the suburbs. People that were in the city still, these
African American families in these yellow and red line communities,
we’re sort of stuck there. So the government steps in
(25:32):
to build affordable housing, which at first were racially integrated.
There were black people and white people, but then even
the lower income white people, uh fled for the suburbs. Yeah,
because wages rose. Yeah, and they left cities in an
urban communities almost entirely black. Um. Yeah. So proportionately speaking,
there was a tremendous drain of white people from the cities.
(25:57):
I’m sure it was different on a city to city based.
As a matter of fact, I know it was. There’s
not a you can’t put a whole blanket of history
over every square inch of the United States, so different
cities had different experiences. But proportionately speaking, black people have
always made up a smaller amount of the American population overall.
(26:17):
But then if you look at the you know, percentage
of black people, say in a city in nine I
think is when it peaked. For Atlanta in particular, Um,
it’s like say black or something that’s a way larger
proportion or disproportionate amount of black people living in the
city than say, um, in the suburbs. And then conversely, Chuck,
(26:38):
when you look at the suburbs and the statistics about
race or demography in the suburbs, then it really kind
of all comes home. Yeah, and you know they’re living
in the suburbs. They decide, you know, we still need
to go into the city sometimes, so we need interstates
to get us there because we like going to concerts
occasionally or seeing a professional sports team play, right, and
(27:01):
so they built these interstates, Uh, they kind of barreled
through black neighborhoods built them there they often became a
dividing line. UH. And you know, these communities were set
up to fail. They had less frequent garbage pickup, they
had inadequate funding to keep up this public housing that
they built, UM, lower access to basic utilities, and they
(27:22):
were just in no position to to succeed basically. Now.
And I’m trying to remember what episode we talked about
prow I Go Housing UM project in in St. Louis.
I think it was the Environmental Psychology episode, if I’m
not mistaken, But that was a really good example of
this of how people pointed to that people from the
outside and we’re like, look, you can’t like black people
(27:43):
can’t take care of anything. Look at the degraded state
that this housing project is in. And it’s, like you said,
like they were set up to fail through all through
like a lack of attention, a lack of funding, UM,
just a lack of basically everything UM. And it’s it’s
that kind of seem to keep perpetuating these um uh biases.
(28:07):
For example, and this is a big one that we’ll
talk about later, that white people think if black people
move into an area, their housing values are going to
go down because of stuff like that. Yeah, I mean,
that’s sort of the I guess you’d call it the
dog whistle that everyone leans on there like, hey, we
you know, we don’t mind. Uh, we’re not bigoted at all.
(28:27):
We just want to keep our housing values up. That’s right.
That that so that one and then the the um
the myth that black people are just inherently um uncredit
worthy or not credit worthy are the two things that
seem to be used the most as cover for, like
you said, post civil rights are segregation in the United States,
(28:51):
the dog whistle, like you said, yeah, I mean, and
now is when we can talk a little bit about
um gentrification, because I mean, the way housing has worked
in this country is really fascinating and really gross in
a lot of ways, but just interesting to look at
from a bird’s eye point of view. The way people
move around and what eventually happened with the cities is that, uh,
(29:16):
you know, call them what you want, yuppies or dinks.
There’s a lot of name for upwardly mobile white people.
They’re like, Hey, I want to move into the city,
I want to be closer to to the concerts. Although
this is going to be controversial, I’m gonna get a
lot of cred for this, but one of the most
annoying trends of the last like fifteen years is building
(29:37):
all these concert venues out in the suburbs. It’s so annoying.
And I know they want their concert venues out there
so they don’t have to come into the city, but
I hate it when I one of my bands plays,
you know, thirty miles out into the suburbs. I won’t go. Yeah,
it’s kind of a pain. Although we did go out.
It’s a huge Motley Crewe thanks to that was Nita Strauss. No,
(30:02):
that’s true, So that was that was worth the trip
because it was Miley Crue and Alice Cooper. I just think,
I don’t know, I think all sports stadiums and all
concerts and you should be in the city. I’m with you.
That’s definitely traditional into the city for a big day out.
You know, when they start moving museums way out in
the exurbs and I’m done. Um. But the same thing.
(30:23):
You could make the same case. When they built the
highways and everything, they just kind of built them through
black communities. That’s what they did with with the stadiums
and all that as well too. Well, no, that’s true.
You know, think about Braves. They just plunked Braves Stadium
ted Turner out just right in the middle of Mechanicsville,
which is a historically black community, and said, everybody moves
(30:45):
move aside, and don’t harass all the white people who
come down to see the game on you know, same day.
We should do I mean, I love sports, but we
should do a There’s such a problematic side to pro
sports from that too. Um, these billionaire owners is using
city money to build new stadiums when their other stadium
is just like ten years old or whatever. That is
(31:06):
definitely problematic. It’s crazy, what a crazy amount of waste
that produces a loan just that alone. Yeah, um, alright,
so where was I? All right? Uh, white dinks are
moving into the neighborhoods again in the city because they
want good Thai food, and uh, these neighborhoods become a
(31:28):
little more attractive the more white people move into, other
white people to move in, and they start moving in
and increasing numbers, and the houses are generally renovated or
improved over time or sometimes they might bulldoze you know,
a pretty decent house with good bones just to build
you know, the biggest house possible on their postage stamp
(31:48):
of a lot. It’s crazy how close they build these
mammoth houses together. I’m sure it happens everywhere. Atlanta’s got
a real problem with it. But what happens is, you know,
home user going to increase, that’s gonna raise taxes on
the other homes around them. A lot of time, those
other homes are owned by UM, longtime lower income residents,
(32:10):
most times people of color, it becomes unsustainable. UM. We
have a great, great program here in my neighborhood and
east like called Neighbor in Need. That is UH Emily
and I have four main charities that we work with
and give to every year, and Neighbor in Need is
one of them because we like to stay really locally focused.
But Neighbor in Need basically addresses this head on and
(32:33):
they you know, raise a lot of money and they
use that money to take care of these people. UM,
if they hear about a neighbor that’s like, you know,
in need, like an older African American couple who’s been
here for forty years, they’re having to pay way too
much in property taxes so they can’t afford a roof
on their house. They’ll go put a roof on their house,
or they’ll pay their power bill, um whatever. I mean.
(32:56):
It’s a really really great grassroots organization, so UM very
happy to be working with them and uh, you know,
trying to fight the sort of ills of gentrification overall. Yeah,
that’s neat because it also draws the community together to
help the longest term residents of that community rather than
that whole everybody’s on their own kind of thing, which
(33:17):
I’m sure most people who move into a community like
you know that is gentrifying probably would want to do.
They just don’t know how to do it, or they
don’t know how to contact anybody. People don’t just usually
go over to their neighbor’s house and knock on the
door and introduce themselves anymore. So that’s cool. Yeah, and
you know this is uh sometimes they are able to
sell their house for a pretty good you know, the
(33:39):
housing value does increase, so they’re able to get more
money than they might have before, which can be a
nice windfall. But I’ve also seen firsthand, literally with my neighbors, UM,
these sort of predatory home builders that come in there,
and while they think it’s probably decent money compared to
what they thought they could get, it’s still a lower
(34:00):
than what they would offer a white family. But even
if they were treated fairly and they walked away with
the big windfall from the sale, um and you know,
had a lot of money to retire on, that community
was still fractured. You know, the people who are having
to move and their neighbors who already had to move
may have lived there for generations or even you know,
(34:22):
just their whole lives and they formed a community. And
it’s not like that whole community just moves elsewhere together.
They all go to different communities, often towards the end
of their life, and it leads to alienation, isolation. Um.
It’s a that I mean, that’s a real problem. Even
even if they are being paid well for the the
houses they’re they’re being bought out of because they don’t
(34:43):
necessarily want to move, but they just can’t afford the
taxes anymore. Um. So there’s there’s that’s a big issue
with gentrification. It’s tough to get around sounds like that
neighborhood group that you’re talking about what’s the name again
that they that they’ve they’ve figured out a way or
round it. Do you know what there needs to be
dude is uh and this is chuck twenty two stuff. Okay.
(35:08):
I think if you live in a house long enough,
you shouldn’t have to pay property tax anymore. Yeah, I
think there are I mean, I have to be a lot.
Maybe it’s like twenty years or something, but that would
solve a lot of this problem. There is zero reason
why some elderly African American couple that’s been in a
home for forty years needs to be paying taxes at
(35:28):
all on that house, much less these jacked up rates. Yeah. No,
I think that’s that’s totally true. Um. Yeah, I think
there’s a if it’s not law, there’s a proposal in
Georgia to do that once you’re sixty five or something
like that. Maybe. I mean, I’m ad about property tax anyway,
just because it’s I don’t know, we pay so much
in taxes. Then you finally scrape up enough to buy
(35:50):
a place that’s your own, and the government’s then like, well,
if you’re going to have to pay tax on that,
do right? You know, I know, it’s seems unfair. Also,
you shouldn’t have to pay full price for coffee anywhere
once you reach sixty five or old agreed, especially after
three pm. Uh, All right, well, should we take a
break and then talk about the Fair Housing Act, which
(36:11):
solved everything. It totally did. It’s all great now, alright,
we’ll be right back up to this. Alright, spoiler, So
(36:41):
we ruined things. They passed the Fair Housing Act, and
racism has been solved in America. That’s right. Ninety eight
And we talked about the Fair Housing Act a little bit, UM,
and you know, it’s a good thing they passed it.
It did banned discrimination in housing practices officially, but it
just led to a little trickier way to get around
(37:03):
stuff by UM doing it on the download. Yeah, and
that is that is for if you’re studying systemic racisicism
in the United States. The passing of like the Voting
Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act UH,
and some other legislation UM during the sixties really changed
things in that no longer was the government in the
(37:27):
business of enforcing discrimination and segregation UM. And also now
you had recourse in the courts if you were discriminated
against UM. But it didn’t just a race racism in
the United States that that task of enforcing basically white
supremacy and racial discrimination and segregation and all the stuff
(37:48):
that comes along with it fell to um lesser institutions
in everyday people who carried out. And when you’re talking
about something like housing discrimination, UM, the people who now
are best able to continue enforcing segregation and discrimination in
the United States are people like lenders and real estate
(38:10):
agents and even people who are deciding where to buy
a house. Um. Everyday americans buying the house UM often
make choices that they don’t necessarily think our racist, and
they might they probably don’t think that they’re racist, but
they’re still they’re housing choices often reflect um inadvertent or
(38:32):
otherwise racial choices or choices along racial lines. Yeah, and
this you know this next bit, we’re we’re sort of
busting on real estate professionals a little bit. I have
very good friends that are real estate agents. They’re great
people for the most part. We don’t mean to just
paint everything with the big broadbrush, but the industry does
(38:54):
have a history of it, for sure. Yeah, and we
have to talk about it. So there was one in
the in the eighties, there was one practice called block
busting god um not having anything to do with video stores,
I know it was the eighties, but um literally busting
up a block. When a real estate agent would work
or sort of act as a speculator and say, either, hey,
(39:19):
you know what you know, there are some black families
that are moving into the area. You may want to
think about selling just to protect your home values before
they fall. Or they might sell to a black family
and introduce them to the area so they could then
turn around, um, buy these houses from the white residents
and then sell them to the black residents or you know,
(39:41):
hopefully black residents, but at a big mark up. Yeah,
which has insult to injury, Like they created a basically
white flight from an area just from the rumor of
black people moving in, and then they move black people
in and sell them sell to them at wildly inflated rates,
which is crazy. And I read one story to Chuck
of one of these real estate agents that was doing blockbusting.
(40:03):
They would have a black dad with the stroller walk
around the neighborhood, um like he had moved in or
was thinking of moving in or whatever, and apparently just
that was enough to get people to start to sell.
And again you’re like, you know, this is this is
terrible that real estate agents are doing it. But the
fact that it was effective really says a lot about
every day you know, white homeowners too. And also again
(40:27):
like it it doesn’t mean like that these white homeowners
hate black people like they were worried about their property values,
because it’s such an embedded myth in America that when
a black family moves into a neighborhood, they’re so bad
at taking care of their their house and their home
values that it’s going to drag the home values down
in throughout the entire neighborhood. And so everybody needed to
(40:49):
get out before that happened. That’s that’s again, that’s the
definition of systemic racism. Yeah, and you know this has
been busted up to a large degree officially, but up
until nineteen fifty, the official policy of the National Association
of Real Estate Boards UM said a realtor should never
be instrumental and introducing into a neighborhood members of any
(41:13):
race or nationality whose presence will clearly be detrimental to
property values in that neighborhood. That was like literal policy
up until nineteen fifty, and then there was a study
in two thousand six by the National Fair Housing Alliance
that said, and this is something else called steering, which
is not blockbusting, but it’s like, hey, like we want
(41:34):
to show you houses over here in this neighborhood because
we think it’s a better fit for you. Uh. And
you know here the financial instruments available to get mortgages
for you and maybe not just for everybody. And black
people historically have not given the full picture. They’re maybe
not shown white neighborhoods. Uh. And the study found that
steering occurred sent of the time when researchers posed as
(41:58):
buyers and we’re shown homes like these sort of undercover operations. Yeah,
and steering occurs, um not just you know, if you’re
if you’re a black home buyer, you’re not just going
to be shown a black neighborhoods. If you’re a white
home buyer, they’re probably not going to take you to
black neighborhoods either. So through this process of racial steering,
this is basically enforcing patterns of segregation still in the
(42:22):
United States. Yeah, there was another study by Brookings. They
found that black owned homes are undervalued by an average
of forty thou dollars. And this is one that’s controlled
by all the factors like home quality and amenities and everything. Exclamation, Yeah,
it’s forty eight grand literally because it is a home
(42:43):
owned by a black individual. When they control for amenities
where the home is the size of the house, everything
else about the house. If you compare apples to apples,
and it’s the same house owned by a white person
and the other house that’s exactly the same home by
a black person, the black person’s house is going to
be forty thousand dollars less in value just because it’s
(43:05):
owned by a black person. And that’s that’s just basically
that whole idea of um that black people drag home
values down becoming a self fulfilling prophecy, and um that
those same home values are all of that undervaluing that
same Brooking study found amounts to a loss of about
(43:27):
a hundred and fifty six billion dollars for Black Americans. Yeah,
for wealth they were not able to achieve. And uh,
you know, we talked a lot about the Great Recession
in the mortgage crisis kind of when it was going
on and shortly thereafter, Um, Black Americans back then were
likelier to receive subprime mortgages. These were the loans that
(43:47):
were really expensive to repay. They had higher fees, they
had higher interest rates, um they also had mechanisms built
in if you were a black loan owner that made
it easier for the lender to seize their collateral with
usually meant their house and so like, it makes sense
that if you are taking a greater risk lending to
somebody as the bank, you should be able to get
(44:10):
more money for it, right, But the problem is is
like subprime mortgages were doled out to black homeowners or
black home buyers at way higher rates than they were
to white home buyers. And that’s a problem in and
of itself if the if the rates are less favorable
and it’s easier for the bank to repossess the house.
But especially it proved to be a big problem during
(44:32):
the mortgage crisis when that bubble bursts, because if you
were a low income Black American, you were probably denied
a mortgage of any kind. But even if you were
a middle to high income black home buyer, you probably
got a subprime mortgage compared to say, a white buyer
(44:52):
with the same criteria that you had to offer. UM.
So that meant that when those foreclosures happened because the
bubble bursts, Black Americans, especially UM, wealthier Black Americans, were
disproportionately impacted, so that that subprime mortgage debacle erased way
more Black intergenerational wealth than it did for white people. Yeah,
(45:15):
I have my last three exclamation points. Stat during the
subprime mortgage crisis, there was a study that found black
and Latino families, because you know we’ve mentioned people of
color a few times, is not just solely African American
families affected? Um, And the study found that black and
Latino families making two hundred thousand dollars a year or more,
(45:39):
we’re still more likely to receive a subprime loan than
white families making less than thirty thousand dollars a year.
That nuts, and six point two percent of white people
with a credit score of six sixty or higher received
a subprime mortgage compared to twenty one point four percent
of black borrowers with that same credit score. So, Chuck, UM,
(46:00):
there’s a big problem with all this. And it’s kind
of like you said at the beginning, like when you’re
talking about race and especially discrimination by race. Um, people
tend to be like, especially white people tend to be like, well,
I don’t know about that. I mean, there’s a lot
of other factors involved, Like it could be anything. So
you really have to kind of prove that this is
a thing. And ever since the federal government got out
(46:22):
of discriminating on paper, um, it’s gotten a lot harder
to track. So back in the seventies, the Department of
Housing and Urban Development, they have an office of Research
and Policy. They came up with the way of testing
this to control for as many variables as possible and
just see if it’s just race that is being discriminated against.
(46:43):
And it’s called paired testing. It’s actually pretty clever from
what I understand. Yeah, that’s when you get to equally
qualified candidates to apply for homeown or to go to
a real estate agent and like look at apartments or
houses or whatever. Uh. They are trained to basically be
as identical as they can be to one another, to
(47:04):
respond to the questions in the same way, have the
same credit history, same job status, same income level, and
basically sort of be duplicates of one another except for
their skin color. Uh, they’re not working together so they
don’t even know, um, like there’s no bias there even
because they’re not like paired together, right, They’re not like,
oh they got too, I’m gonna try this with them.
Like they don’t. They don’t meet one another, they don’t
(47:26):
interact with one another. They’re just doing their thing and
they’re just trained to do it exactly the same way.
The only distinction between them is their their race. Right.
And so the Urban Institute, which is a think tank,
UM study this and they came up with kind of
four big points from this paired testing UH exercise, which
(47:47):
is UH. They found about discrimination and housing vouchers that
are intended to let low income renters choose from a
bigger pool a rental housing uh than the realtors even showed. UM,
there were fewer homes and apartments available to minorities like
we were, like I kind of mentioned earlier, like just
a smaller like no, you know, we’ll just look here. Yeah,
(48:09):
the racial steering usually results in fewer, fewer places being shown. Um.
They were steered again to primarily um, you know, neighborhoods
of their own ethnicity, and then given less information overall.
Like I mentioned about mortgage products, UM, different kinds of loans,
different kinds of ways of structuring a loan, just not
(48:31):
given that information at all. Right, Um, so the they
also found this paired testing turns up very frequently that um,
it’s not just even people of colors, not just black Americans,
but it’s people of color in general. But um, it’s
not even just down to to racial discrimination. There’s also
a lot of discrimination against people who are differently abled.
(48:53):
They actually sometimes fair worse than minorities when it comes
to housing discrimination. Paired testing is has turned that up
as well. So it’s still the upshot of all this
is that it’s still a problem and there is like
some silver lining to it. Um the I think. Uh.
That same think tank, the Urban Institute, also turned up
(49:14):
that there’s been a general decline overall. It’s not huge,
but it’s it’s noteworthy. It’s remarkable. Um of preference in
favoritism toward white white buyers over buyers of of like
minority buyers by about five percent between and two thousand.
It went from about so And there does seem to
(49:38):
be a general decline in racism or discrimination, I should say, uh,
in the United States. So that’s the good news, is
that America seems to be getting less racist. The bad
news is that America is still racist. Like, we still
have a long way to go. It’s, as the study
put the studies findings confirm a hard truth that America’s
(49:58):
long journey to end housing discrimination remains unfinished. Um. And
so there’s still a long way to go. And I
think it’s really important for everybody to realize that there’s
a long history of discriminating against people of color, but
also very specifically Black Americans, and that it’s still going
on today. And even though it’s in a slightly lesser form,
it’s very important if it’s going on at all, that
(50:21):
we we erase it. That’s right, agreed, You got anything else?
Nothing else? All right, Chuck, Well then that’s housing discrimination.
And since I said all right, Chuck, it’s time for
a listener mail. Well instead of reading a specific listener mail.
And because this episode is a little heavy, we thought
we’d have a little fun. Um. We got maybe more
(50:45):
emails than we have for any other episode in our
history down literally about Neco wavers Um. A lot of
support for the Neco for people, and a lot of
condemnation for yucking yums without giving having tried them. You
were all correct. We honor you all, and we’re gonna
Josh got some sent them to me. We’re gonna try
(51:06):
some necka wafers on the air. Listen there. I just
realized I think I made a grave mistake by not
having any water in the basement. Yeah, I just realized
this as well. Do you have a pipe to tap into?
I think we should eat the same color. Oh really? Okay,
all right, so we can kind of go, you know,
nose to nose. I’m never open one these before. Okay, exactly, already,
(51:29):
so nasty. You know, everybody was right about yucking people’s
yams in general, but also because we hadn’t tried them.
So that’s why we’re doing this. I mean, they’re just
falling apart when I opened the package. So to strike one,
I’ve got a mess on my table. What color are
we gonna do? I mean it’s hard to tell. This
looks sort of like a very pale yellow. That’s the
(51:51):
only whole one in my hand. Pale yellow. I don’t
even have that. I got white. I’ve got orange it
maybe maybe it is white, Okay, I’ll call it. Wait wait, wait, wait,
I might have a palio when I do, I do it. Okay,
apology to the people of Mesophonia, but here we go.
Oh my god, it’s just like it’s like a flatter um,
(52:18):
bigger candy heart. The conversation hart, it’s not bam like okay,
very hard, the crunches. I think what probably gets people.
I mean, the taste isn’t bad, but it’s not great. No,
they’re not great, But I mean, who’s crazy for conversation hearts,
sickos and weirdos? You know, the same goes for me. Well,
(52:40):
what’s the verdict? Would you ever buy and eat Neca
wafers after this? I will tell you what. I will
probably eat the rest of these. And I like sugar.
I like as atter fact, I’m gonna do one of
the gray ones real quick. What about you? Uh no, no,
that is not my up my alley. But I’m gonna
(53:02):
try one of those chocolates because those where I think
recommended steer clear, the dark gray ones, the liquorice ones.
They’re awful. It tastes Oh no, it is slightly different. Yeah,
I get a little hint up cocoa. I’ve come around
a little bit to the liquorice ones. At the end Wow,
I’m turning into an eco weirdo. Actually, the chocolate aren’t bad.
(53:23):
What about pink? Try pink? Well, that’s um, this is
winter green. I think people are so disgusted right now. Yeah,
this is all right. We’re literally the last two people
listening to this. Man, I think we should wrap this. Okay. Well, um,
if you want to tell us that we shouldn’t yuck
everybody’s jump, especially about something we haven’t tried, we need
(53:44):
to hear that whenever we do that. It’s totally true
and totally right. Thank you everybody who wrote him. You
can get in touch with us at Stuff podcast at
I heart radio dot calm Stuff. You should know it
is pretty action of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(54:05):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H
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Transcript
Brian Bienkowski
All right, I am super happy to be joined by Nsilo Berry. Nsilo, how you doing today?
Nsilo Berry
I’m chillin’, man. Really good outside Portland here in Oregon’s pretty decent right now. And I don’t think it’s raining right now at the moment, i might say so. So, but the last few weeks have been kind of pouring. So I like the rain. So I’m kind of disappointed it’s not raining, actually.
Brian Bienkowski
Well, I drove home in in a snowstorm yesterday from west of where I live. And I’m the same I’m strange and that I like the bad weather. There’s something about it that does something to the mood. Well, speaking of, speaking of place, let’s let’s go way back to the beginning. So you’re not originally from Portland, you grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. So tell me about your upbringing and how you think it shaped you
Nsilo Berry
Yeah, great question. My parents, my mother specifically was in the military. So I did a lot of moving around. One of the other senior fellows, Lariah, she had a similar experience in her podcast talking about that. So for me, I kind of connected with that as well. So for me moving around, seeing different, a bunch of different places living with a bunch of different family, extended family in particular. But we started in St. Louis around 2000s, my mom got out of the military, if she had my brother in the late 90s, she took a job as a flight attendant. And so we kind of settled down there, it’s kind of being like our home base. So growing up in St. Louis was a really, really unique situation for me a really fun time kind of growing up African American middle class family. And so for us, it was really important about just kind of experience different things growing up. I was in Boy Scouts, became an Eagle Scout, went to public school, went the private school, had a chance to to be part of different liberal organizations grown up throughout the community. And so for me, St. Louis is really kind of the foundation for who I am today. A lot of my great friends still live there today. Fell in love with sports there too. And so for me, St. Louis has a special place in my heart. But really, you know, when I became a teen, I felt like I just kind of outgrew the place because in that in a way it is kind of small. And so once you kind of do everything there, I was looking out to the world and so living next to the airport was kind of this always “my head in the clouds” in a way type of thing, because I saw plants come and go. And so I was like, “you know, I’m gonna be on the next plane out of here when I have an opportunity to see the world for myself.”
Brian Bienkowski
I want to hear more about Eagle Scouts. Was this something that was just something that was part of your family did other people go through this and and did it open your eyes at all to the environment and nature?
Nsilo Berry
Yeah, my father he was in he was in Boy Scouts when he was growing up. But he had a bad train accident when he was little and he lost his legs. And so now he’s permanently disabled. But for him being part of just kind of that environment. And at the time, it was kind of just the young boys growing up together. So for me, Boy Scouts was a way to just experience the space around me and my community, but also to nature. So camping was a big part of that. So having a chance to go into different cabin reservations, explore the campsite, keeping them clean, of course, but also respecting the space in nature around you and also having an understanding of kind of like animals and environment and ecosystem too, also while learning different skills. Like for example, I remember through Boy Scouts, I had a chance to ride a horse. I don’t think I would have ever done that if it would have been for Boy Scouts or something like that, right? starting a fire, surviving, putting tents together. And for me Eagle Scouts is the highest rank of that too. And so that was just an opportunity for me to go grow outside of myself, but also challenging myself and also do with some of my great friends. They recently just had, I think the Eagle Scout organization just had their 50th anniversary. And so I had a chance in a book to talk about my experience, I got a book back from that. And one thing that was unique about kind of where I grew up is that all my closest friends, like three of my closest friends, all Black, all Eagle Scouts, which is really unique for that scenario, and the situation at the time in St. Louis. So thank you, my troop, troop 531. And then the leaders at the time to help me shape that and also my friends was incredibly invaluable experience I still talk about to the to this day that people ask about my resume, you know, when I bring it up, or when I talk about it.
Brian Bienkowski
That’s so cool. And I think I mistakenly call that Eagle Scout. So it’s Boy Scouts, but Eagle Scout is something that you reach
Nsilo Berry
Yeah, it’s that it’s the highest rank in Boy Scouts. So it’s like through all kinds of your merit badge collection, camping, being in leadership positions, but also kind of culminating in an Eagle Scout project. And so that project is then kind of encapsulate, encapsulate all the work that you’ve done over kind of the period of your scouting career. And then you do that project, you get it approved, then you talk about certain things. And so you got to do that before your 18s, like when you age out. And so I was able to do that, got my Eagle Scout, and then graduated high school, and then you know, went on to college, and so on and so forth.
Brian Bienkowski
I promise I’ll move on from this, but I’m fascinated. What was your project?
Nsilo Berry
yeah, it was a I worked at. So we have a there’s an eagle bird sanctuary in Missouri. And so they do a bunch of different projects with scouting, scouts and stuff like that. So I chose a project related to honeysuckle kind of extermination. Honeysuckle in Missouri at the time is an invasive species. So it sucks up the nutrients of local kind of ecology and wildlife in the area. And it makes it hard for other animals like deer to kind of eat the native plants that are responsible for it, and they can’t eat it fast enough, then fashion grows. And so honeysuckle getting to suck the nutrients out of all local plant life. And so for me, I chose that –I have this weird kind of masochistic thing where I got to do the hardest thing and challenge myself– And what’s all about layering, I guess, when it comes to sports and stuff like that. So I said, they said, Hey, we have this problem, honeysuckle, can you help us get rid of it? I said no problem. So I got a bunch of pals together, my friends and I people, my troop troop mates, we went together started pulling the honeysuckle out, put them on the palette. So they they they can be exterminator take it to another place, an exterminator burned, whatever the case may be. So we put all those out. And after that, they came back, I think there was another project that kind of ran concurrently with mine. And that was replaced with other more natural life species, plant-like species that were able to be then eaten and maintained by the local plant life and animal life there too. Another one, my friends build the bird cage at the bird sanctuary. So we have a lot of people that kind of just like involve ourselves within that space. And so super thankful to that organization and the people there at the bird sanctuary. And I’m really thankful for the opportunity too. I think I have like a plaque somewhere on a tree over there. But I haven’t been back in so long. I haven’t really like confirmed or anything like that, too. But really unique experience for that.
Brian Bienkowski
Yeah, that’s so cool. Thanks so much for sharing that. And it sounds like there was a lot of a lot of engagement with the environment and nature here. But this kind of leads into my next question is where did kind of science in the environment come into play during those early years?
Nsilo Berry
Yeah, like, and I don’t know, if you remember this, I don’t know if this is the St. Louis thing. But in the summer, this is back when West Nile virus was like a huge thing, right. And so they used to have these trucks, they used to go around spraying these chemicals throughout the neighborhoods. And it was to help maintain mosquito birth and help decline and helps prevent that from happening. But it always smells so nasty all the time. You knew when they were coming out, you didn’t want to be outside with your friends, when the vehicle come out. The vehicle didn’t care, they would just drive by you probably wave out I’m not thinking twice about because the same person doing the work every single day. But it had this really bad smell to it. And so I always thought about like, what does that like that can’t be good for you know, people coming inside, I know, my parents would tell me to come inside when that pressure would come outside. So I had this weird kind of, this weird kind of relationship with things like that happening in our neighborhood and thinking about these type of things. But the most I was growing up I knew about mold obviously, I knew about lead in water those type of things. But for me, that was kind of where that that fascination with the environment in the things came apart. My family has always been into respecting the where you where you go, where you come from, and leaving places better than where you found them, which also has to be a scout slogan, too, as well, we’re talking about the environment as well. And so those type of things kind of just reinforced kind of personal behaviors of mine. And when I think about the world, animals, and the environment around us when it comes to to care about these things that then extended through my education, and then ultimately into where we are now when we talk about environmental justice and housing and other sorts and also toxic materials, too. So that’s kind of where all those foundation things, the initial curiosity came into play but then, you know, formalized with, you know, formal education practice and also experiences and talking to people and so on and so forth.
Brian Bienkowski
Yeah, and you’ve been able to take these these early values and make a career out of it, which is very cool. And before we get to that, which we’re going to I want to know what is the defining moment or event that shaped your identity up to this point?
Nsilo Berry
Yeah, it’s it’s a big one. And I think that it kind of leads into the question we talked about, some of the work I did in Africa. And for me, that’s the biggest one. I had an opportunity when I was in college, undergraduate at Drexel University in Philadelphia, to travel to the Gambia, Western Africa, very small country in Africa. And so I had opportunity to work as a kind of biomedical engineer and in a program there through their Drexel University. And for me, you know, as an, as an African American person growing up in America, obviously, there’s you have the understanding of kind of like, think about it like point z, which is obviously being in America. So obviously, knowing that I’m an American here at this point. But point A being what is the beginning point of that? We know it’s historically Africa. But we but we don’t have any kind of like formal connection to that as as Black people here unless you kind of trace your lineage back through slavery, and so on, and so forth. And so for me having the opportunity to really go back to Africa and reconnect with kind of that part, knowing that, not necessarily specifically knowing what maybe what tribe or what kind of country that I emanate from, my family came from, but really just having this, this influence of understanding of some part of me feels connected to this continent in a certain way. And that will be one thing that, you know, for anybody who, who goes back to a place that they know that their family comes from, but especially a Black person going back to the continent, I think having the opportunity to really immerse yourself in the culture and the people around you is, was the biggest shapeshifting thing. I had a person tell me, he said, Hey, Nsilo, you look, I can show you a picture, you look just like one of my cousins here, right? And that’s me, I’ve, that’s the crazy thing I’ve ever heard, right? I’ve never, I’ve never really got that in the United States. But having somebody saying that, to me was just like this opportunity. Like you have people here that there is some lineage here of you that, you know, comes from this place here. And that, to me is the biggest, I think one of the biggest shapeshifting opportunities for myself, I turned 21 there. So it was a coming-of-age thing for me personally, to experience that in Africa. And so that has, to me, is the ultimately the biggest Shapeshifter when it comes to my identity, and thinking about Africa and talking about and supporting the economy, even to this day.
Brian Bienkowski
That’s so cool. And I know at the time you were working at the intersection of engineering, public health and environmental justice while you were down there. So can you tell us about the actual work while you were there, and any challenges working in a different country, and also any victories, any good things that came with the work?
Nsilo Berry
Yeah, a lot of the work involved, I worked with a group called Power Gambia and they’re a solar kind of working group. And they work with kind of with renewable energies. And so they have a claim that they invested in down there, where they have solar energy, really, to the clinic, because a lot of sun when it comes to kind of petrol fuel sources, they’re unreliable, they’re hard to get. And at the hospital, they can go to anytime. And so in a hospital, you obviously need functioning things in order to help with kind of the patients in in different things in the moment, so. So for me, they have these things called solar suitcases, and these are kind of like, like a smaller miniature version of solar power systems, where you can then connect them to different clinics. And so I had the opportunity with me, and another another woman named Mary, she was a journalist, but also did some nursing stuff down there, too. And so we traveled throughout these different clinics here and installed the solar suitcases in these different clinics. And throughout all different parts of Gambia traveled the whole, the whole country there. And for that, for that reason, there were people, doctors delivering children with kind of thing about like an old Nokia phone, with a flashlight in their mouth, delivering the child, you know, in the dark, right. And so these are kind of things that where they have the opportunity now to have the solar system where if the child did come at, you know, a inconvenient time like children do, especially when they’re being born, obviously, they had opportunities now to have the adequate equipment, the lighting sources to have say, hey, we can deliver shot in a safe environment, where we can then have the right tools to do what we have to do but also if you have to escalate the issue to another clinic, we have the ability to make that communication and say, Hey, we need to go to the bigger clinic in a closer neighborhood or closer community, so we can get the children what they need. So a lot of that work on that development type of things. And also just kind of fixing, you know, equipment throughout these different hospitals, a lot of people would ask you to do certain things for them. So leaving things again, better than what I found them, but also investing in these clinics for long term so that they can have things that they need, because it is hard to get these places. Like if you don’t have the proper four-by-four vehicle, a lot of places are hard to get to a lot of people use donkey cart, which is very, you know, when we’re talking about an emergency, just not economical and not viable. Or people use transportation, which is hard to get to as well. And then after that significant walking obviously, because the distances are just so vast on the continent, especially in Gambia too, even as a small place, a small country. So that’s what much of my work centered around that. I had a whole hospital also an opportunity to travel to different parts of the country, especially during the holidays and stuff like that, too. So, but again, very, very important. The victories part of that world, having just opportunity to meet different people, to get some of this equipment up as equipment was, is hand-me-down equipment, so things that hospitals don’t need anymore, they pass to the clinic, and a lot of times they’re broken, they’re not very viable. So I had to fix them and then had to send the information to the other people that are addresses, that are there, so they know how to fix it when I’m gone. And so those are type of things that I think for me ultimately the most frustrating thing because you know if you want to be you want to see people succeed, you give them the best chance to, that’s what, I think that’s what a great coach will always told me so you know when you’re good giving bad equipment and people coming to you don’t really see them, you don’t want to see them succeed. It’s just something that you know how no longer have to pay for, to maintain, so you’re passing that along with somebody else to deal with that, which to me, I think is completely unfair if you’re talking about kind of like helping people and giving people the best opportunity to be kind of successful in their own environment. So that’s the biggest challenge. But you know, everybody else around it knows kind of their situation. And they’re constantly working to better their situation, which is always, to me, the most kind of respect I have for the group and the people that work in those environments in those places.
Brian Bienkowski
And maybe this is hard to answer. But I’m wondering, how you’ve carried that forward, that feeling that you had of having been there and having met people? And that sense of place? How was that? How have you carried that forward?
Nsilo Berry
Yeah, that’s a great question. I think for me, when I got there as a 20 year old initially, there’s this kind of feeling like, um I, what I’m the stuff am I doing isn’t impactful enough, there was a moment in in when I was working there, where I was walking to kind of my office, and you see some there was somebody on a morgue, they were covered up, and I mean, on a gurney, they’re covered up deceased, and there’ll be taken to the morgue. And so it’s free, that’s a real moment of kind of understanding, of really understanding that, you know, this is people’s lives are on the line here, like, and the work that I’m doing has impact on people’s lives. And so that responsibility weighed on me in a way where it didn’t feel like a burden, or something that you would fall but felt like a responsibility and a moment of opportunity to be your best version of yourself through the combination of work and training that you got up to this very moment here. And so I took that kind of that, that motivation, and carried that with me, but also with that, but also with the support of the people in the clinic who trusted I knew that I knew what I was doing there, right, that would in middle night would call me to come fix the oxygen concentrator for somebody that was you know, that needed it, that would come in and say, hey, great job on this great job in this facility, we need your we need you to go to this clinic in this part of the Gambia. And so I took that, that that motivation and courage and that support. And that’s something that’s been stuck with me throughout this moment in time, everywhere I’ve gone. And it’s always this kind of this, this idea that wherever where I am in that moment, I’m supposed to be there. Because the work that I put in, prove that I’m supposed to be there. I had a moment in college and I forget this was kind of like, I was in a lecture hall, giant lecture hall, and we’re talking about, you know, electronic stuff about, the teacher’s laying out their expectations and what to expect from you. And I remember coming on to lecture hall, just got because like 18 or so. And I felt like at the moment in time, the stage was too bright for me, like metaphorically speaking, like, I don’t know if I can handle this., I remember I called my mom from the lunchroom at Drexel. I was like, You know what, I’m gonna transfer, I’m gonna get into something else. Like, in that moment, I really want to run away from that thing. And my mom said something that was just the simplest thing, but she said “Nsilo, you know, where you are? I’m like, I’m at school, and she said,”the job of the teachers there is to also to teach you those things, too, right?” And I said, You know what, that makes a ton of sense. So that all that anxiety I had pent up about I should know these things already. What didn’t make any sense in that moment? Because I’m getting to a place where they’re supposed to teach me how to how to put these connections together, how to solder this, how to do that, what is the capacitor? What is that, whatever. I said, You know what, okay, I’ll do that. And from then on, I take in the moment, like, when I’m jumping into something new, this is the first moment where I’m gonna be the least kind of knowledgeable on the situation, and then you build upon that day each and every single day doesn’t mean they’re not gonna be harder days later. But this is the moment in time where you’re gonna just be the most lack of you’re gonna have the most lack of knowledge in the moment. And that you can build upon that moving forward. And so I’ve always kind of taken that mindset. And then really, from there jumping in things with both feet, and then figure them out as you go in that thing, with the support of others in your team and people around you too.
Brian Bienkowski
those things are so common among successful people, I think. Both learning humility, I think is really important. But also, there’s something and I see it with people in this program all the time, is people who are really hard on themselves, you know, feel like you should know all these things. But learning to rely on others is so important. So I want to fast forward to your work that you’re doing now, which ehn.org is very familiar with, because we’ve we’ve worked with, worked with you folks a little bit. So you are at the Healthy Building Network. And I don’t think most people think of buildings when they think of toxic chemicals. So first off, what are the concerns there? And how do these materials impact people’s health?
Nsilo Berry
And that’s a great question, Brian, for me, think about it like this. I want everybody who listened to the podcast, think about how much time you spent within the building, whether it’s your home, whether it’s a place of worship, whether it’s your work, whether it’s a school, right? think about what that really means and compare that to the time you spend outside, right, I’m not talking about like cracking a window from inside your home, but really spending time outside. I think people will be hard pressed to think that they spent a lot of their time inside, taking in kind of all the fumes and the materials that they build from, either from furniture or from carpet or for whatever the case may be or from maybe paint that they maybe they painted a new room in their home or something like that. Um, so when it comes to toxic materials, we’re talking about things that, you know, manufacturers put into their their products to make them more viable, to last longer on the shelves. But oftentimes these things have detriments on kind of our development human beings. Rather, it’s kind of things related to carcinogens, things related to kind of developmental toxics, it’s for individuals who are pregnant, or things that just don’t go away what you call PBTS, a persistent biochemical bioaccumulative, toxic, it’s things that just don’t go away, they’re mad annoying, trust me, right. And so when we talk about these, these chemicals, and the impact of these, these are some things that if I go into a room for like an hour or so and then leave, okay, and I never go back in the room, that’s one thing. But we’re sleeping in these, we’re staying in these, we’re building our lives in these. And so that’s where kind of the, the systems of these chemicals begin to infiltrate into ourselves, in our body. And our body begins to kind of be impacted on these in a way where we see more cases of higher asthma in poor housing, right? we see higher incidence of carcinogens and people who work in PVC locations or PVC factories, right? we see these things where individuals are becoming contracted with the disease at a higher rate, right, where it just doesn’t make sense compared to the rest of the population, right. And then you start looking at kind of the digest of materials when it comes to building homes. And places that have affordable housing are built with legacy systems, poor materials that that needs to be replaced, that haven’t been replace compared to maybe a suburban home, that has the most green places, is the most green kind of facility or home management, whatever you want to say, that has just a much more healthy kind of one, functional way to it, but also scientifically, a lot healthier compared to the individuals who live in the community housing that you might see in more urban areas. So think about, think about the impact of that. And think about kind of what that means for you long term, what that means for your kids. And what that means kind of for individuals who might find themselves kind of immuno-compromised, but also develop conditions, you think that would just don’t make quite much sense when you compare it to either your cohort, the people who live next to you or the people who live in different communities that you see just lower incidences of these type of things like asthma, like the development of cancer in particular. So that’s kind of where those those kinds of two fields intersect. It’s one of the type of things that if you don’t know what you’re looking for, you’re not going to find it, you don’t think it’s just a home I’m coming into. But people have an idea when they see these type of things about, I don’t feel safe in this home, this home feels kind of like a kind of maybe like a prison, I don’t feel healthy in this place. I want to get out of this place. We have this intuition as human beings. So I think it’s very interesting to, to think about too, when it comes to kind of the place that we live and where we, you know, make our lives and so on and so forth.
Brian Bienkowski
I think the bringing up the idea that low-income housing is often more saddled with these things is really important. Because when I talk to people about the work that we do on toxic chemicals, is you okay, yes, it’s bad, you’re exposed to something that could harm you. It’s bad, but then you think about the downstream impacts. So you have a family who’s already low income, now is saddled with health problems and their children are, so is their health care available? they probably don’t have adequate access to health care or aren’t offered from their jobs if they’re low income. So it’s the cycle, you know, and then the kids are growing up in an environment that makes them sick more, and then they stay in low income housing and the cycle continues. So I think it’s important to think about these kinds of generational impacts. And it’s just kind of a system keeping the foot on the throat of certain, certain groups of people. So I think that work, the work that you’re doing is very important. And where does kind of Healthy Building Network fit into this? Is it just on kind of the advocacy of safer materials and trying to get these bad actors out of building materials?
Nsilo Berry
Yeah, as a we, we kind of ourselves as a research organization. And that’s where we are. So a lot of the work that we’re doing, we put together, we look into research. So we’re looking at a bunch of safety data sheets, and harmful product declarations, what are in these chemicals? How do we get rid of them, but also how we manage them too. Another part of our work is kind of managing our Pharos database, which is a database full of different chemicals that come together from different lists and regulatory lists throughout the world. So we have lists from Japan, we have lists from America, we have lists from Canada, Europe, that list where these kinds of chemicals fall on these different registrar’s and what they mean for kind of the the human impact, but also environmental impact too, where they’re talking about ozone depletion in particular, as well, but also kind of where these chemicals fall among kind of the toxic spaces and, and kind of how do we get the information out to people so they know, architects know, building owners know, developers know, “hey, I’m putting this type of paint that has these type of chemicals in it, just so you know, this chemicals are associated with these types of hazards. So you got to make better decisions here.” Right and also part of our work is creating these kind of this product guidance or these how to spectra that shows you kind of ranking these things from like a stoplight system like saying hey, Green has the least toxics in it, where Red is kind of the worst type of thing you want to avoid these type of things and really, you know a lot of our guys is kind of staying out of this kind of orange zone and moving away from the red and and making the the easy wins and the easy victory so to speak, when it comes to kind of developing your home and putting kind of the best things in your home for the right reason, so to speak. So that’s where we fall on it. We’re a small organization. So we have to know our limitations. So when it comes to the advocacy side, Brian of it, a lot of it is working with groups like coming clean, for example, health organizations like that, who have the kind of the bandwidth to kind of do the more kind of vocal stuff or working with kind of more grassroots things related to that maybe like the NAACP, they have a great CSBs sustainable equity, and the sustainable building sector. That’s the kind of their side organization is related to building. So working groups like that, when it comes to the activist side of it to help kind of push that message out, helps with kind of our work so that we’re not overextending ourselves, too. Because I think as researchers, I think that one thing we have to kind of do is focus on our thing, but find the ways where we can work with other people in a team to impact the space more kind of effectively.
Brian Bienkowski
And are there examples of whether it’s companies, building practices, projects that you’re seeing that are doing this construction in a healthy, sustainable way?
Nsilo Berry
Yeah, there’s two that come into mind. We worked with a group called Sara architects, I believe they were started in Portland, but they have offices in California. It was a demonstration project that we work with them about a new project they’re building in California for individuals who are low income, low income housing. And for them, they’re really I really want to champion them as an organization because they care about healthy materials, and building them and making them part of their mission there too. So they came to us, we talked about the project and they said, “Hey, we’re building these prizes with these so many units here. What are the ways that we can improve this project to make sure we can make it the healthiest as possible as viable within a kind of our constraints, our budget, so on and so forth.” So we have the opportunity to go back and forth with them. So my colleagues… we did a great job at kind of telling us, okay, this is a victory. This is a point here, you can do choose better paint here. What about the drywall here? What about the carpet here? Making just better decisions throughout that so people don’t have to think about that, because you mentioned that earlier, Brian, people saddled with all these issues here. And I think part of our work is it’s kind of take that burden off of them. So they can focus on the things within their lives, rather than thinking about, hey, can you replace these pipes, can you places drywall, can you replace this paint for me, like those things should already be taken care for. If you care about the people early on, that’s something that people shouldn’t have to worry about. They should be trusting that coming into a home, they’re getting a safe product, like almost like ordering some food, they’re getting a safe, healthy, you know, dish that they’re getting here, it hasn’t been tainted with this, and it has good, you know, products in it, ingredients in it, so to speak. And the same thing should be with your home too. When you’re coming into your house, you space, those things should also be healthy too. I don’t care if the person is low income, I don’t care if the person is a veteran, that has no impact on those type of things. In comparison, we’re talking about individuals who are higher income, who are more privileged, right, those things should be the same for both people. And so that group is a group that gets that we’ve worked with them previously, we do a bunch of webinars with them. And so that’s something that they care about, too, as well. Another group is United Interest for Justice, a community grassroots organization based in Minnesota. And they did a great job at working with different groups and helping getting people away from abusive landlords. And doing so they take over the the kind of the, the the tenant to take over the apartment complex. And in doing so they have the opportunity now, to redefine what’s important to us, what are the things that matter to us, more building these apartment complexes out, right. So a lot of it is retroactive birchbark, and get these old materials out that didn’t replace, we’re getting this old paint out, they didn’t replace, we’re getting this old drywall out, they didn’t replace so working with kind of the local banks and getting the loans that they need, but also working with us to say, Hey, if you’re going to replace your place, think about this paint that you should be using because this paint doesn’t have XY and Z in it. Right to help with kind of long term impacts we’re talking about. We’re talking about furniture, look with furniture that doesn’t have halogenated flame retardants in it. Right? So working with a group like that, who’s taken the opportunity to say, hey, we’re at the foundation, we need to start building a foundation properly. So how do we how do we reach out to Who do you work with so those are two groups that I believe that, you know, when they’re talking about a foundation, they know kind of who to get involved early with. And so when it comes to health materials start early, it is a lot easier and a lot cheaper for you in the long run to put the stuff in at the beginning. Rather than try to come come back in later or try to redefine processes later, where you kind of have the systematic approach to something already, it is a lot harder to redefine behavior that you learn especially bad habits, rather than starting a good habit and building upon good habits moving forward. That’s a lot more. And that’s I think that’s a lot more fundamental, fundamentally viable for your organization moving forward, but also for the people who occupy your space that you build, moving forward to as well. So start with good habits early, build on good habits later and maintain those in the present. That’s what helps impact healthy materials, you know, on a systematic level.
Brian Bienkowski
It’s a great point. I mean, the most obvious example of that is lead paint, right? I mean, we use lead paint for years and to try to get rid of it in houses now create sometimes creates more problems because you’re just kicking up dust. So that points well taken. So in your Agency of Change essay you talked about inadequate affordable housing in the US and ways to do it better. So you’ve talked about the links between toxics in the home and low income housing, but this essay was more about just being able to afford a home. I mean, you talked a little bit about healthy materials, but it was more about just having homes that are affordable and something you can be proud of. Can you explain why this too is a health issue and how this fits into your Healthy Buildings work?
Nsilo Berry
Yeah, that’s a great question I mentioned at the end of it, starting with kind of the fundamentals and the foundation, which I kind of ended my essay with come to that point, too, as well. And the point is that is that we’re talking about healthy materials. Think about it like this. It’s a it’s it’s a part of the umbrella that you go way down in the chain it but it’s not the biggest part that covers the entire kind of encapsulation of affordable housing. Like for me, you have to begin with the foundation part of it, which is affordable housing and wheeling starting with those those positive systematic impacts. If you cannot do that, then when you get to healthy materials, you’re just not going to have the time or the space or the opportunity to say, hey, we need to get this lead paint out of here, right? The lead paint being in those in those homes. That is a systematic that people did way back when that people now have to live with today till today. So getting those out, and it’s going to cost even more money, it’s going to be a retroactive issue that builds up over time, like, and so we’re talking about groups like NYCHA, for example, who I was critical of in the essay, it’s not that because people in there don’t care about that they don’t have the opportunity or the space to care about these type of things. Because they’re, they don’t have a lot of individuals who are committed as far as just kind of having the the power, the employee power to do what they have to do. But it becomes an increasingly expensive issue when your organization is lacking the funding either from state or from a federal sense to make the change that you need required, right, it’s a lot more, it’s a lot easier to have just a plot of land and build up and have everything that’s just clean and green, and so on and so forth, rather than having these old decrepit buildings, tearing them down, building them back up doing this doing that getting construction in there, it all becomes a logistical nightmare, because these are in urban areas with surrounding businesses, and you have to get permits, and it becomes just a thing where at this point, why are we even talking about the materials at this point? there are so many other issues that linger throughout this place that healthy materials is not even like, you just listen to me like, like five minutes in like a community hearing just because you have to, you know, do have the time or whatever the case may be so. So when it comes to healthy materials, you know, I like to advocate for solution that when it becomes really sensible and viable to do so just saying, hey, we need to do these things. That’s great. Right? But you have to understand the concept of what you’re asking people to do what you’re asking for folks, right? If people get to them, say, hey, we can we can talk about health materials law, like United Interest for Justice, right? That’s a great opportunity talk about that moment, after they secured the new apartments after they secured after the move away from the landlords, after they secured the funding, rather than trying to talk to them as they’re going through this kind of this logist this kind of legislative nightmare to try and beat the landlord, the abusive landlord from you know, getting separating them from their the current apartment complexes, right. So you have to have this opportunity to understanding when to do these things, and get to people early, but be smart about and recognize kind of what’s on their plate, and not just pile more stuff on there. Because if you’re piling a bunch of solutions that aren’t, that aren’t, that people cannot hold together, it’s all just going to fall apart. You’ve seen that before in a bunch of different spaces where people try to do too much. You have to do enough in the moment and be forceful in those moments, to then push things forward at the next moment, if that makes sense, right?
Brian Bienkowski
It does make sense and your point about almost making it for people who are doing the building and making those decisions, making it an economic win for them, you’re not going to have to go in and redo things and constantly be changing things do it right from the beginning, and then you save money in the long run. Unfortunately, we don’t we don’t often think like that. What are people that are making decisions don’t. So before I switch gears a little bit and get into some fun stuff I’d like to ask folks some of this work can be can be heavy, although it sounds like you guys have had some some significant victories along the way. But what makes you optimistic in this space?
Nsilo Berry
And it’s a great question. I think for me, the big part of is that I’m I’m meeting different people every day that that that are that one wants to have the conversation, but how can materials which is important in anything, but are saying hey, let’s do a project together. Let’s do these things together. So they’re reaching out to us or to other organizations about the materials. They want to know more about them, and maintaining a relationship and moments like that. So we can build upon kind of a new culture of healthy materials. That’s what makes me the most optimistic about it today. I think that a lot of kind of in in having it being a small organization that we are as HBN we have a lot of influence and a lot of different space from either connections and people knowing us. And so we’re, we get constantly invited to talk about things to do about to do these things. But I think something that we’re now asking people to is that if you’re going to ask them do these things. What are you being committed to after this conference, right? Don’t just take this this weekend here in June or July just to have us here. But let’s build upon something moving forward. You know, how are you building these practices into your architecture firm? How are you building these things into local legislation? if you’re part of kind of like statewide legislation that comes to housing, these things are things that people are excited to do, and we brainstorm and we have this conversation with them about. So I think for me, that’s the most optimistic part about this. And I think people are getting to the moment where we’re understanding that, that you know, as the dawdling can’t continue to go on, because that means that the people who are most saddled with this, as you mentioned, Brian, continue to still be in that situation, we don’t have time to dot all this, we know what the issues are, we know what the problems are, it is now to start building things, you know, correctly moving forward. And course correcting kind of that work that we that was done previous before us a proof of work jumped into these positions, up position until today. So a lot of that is, I think, for me, where my optimism lies in this kind of work. And I’m really excited about the the people that I’ve met, and the people that I’ve continued to meet, that are doing this work, and it seems like you’re just meeting different people in different spaces in different kind of, you know, you know, positions that you don’t have the influence to say, hey, you know, we’re gonna start doing this now moving forward. And to me, that’s a big victory, because that’s gonna mean something to that family that moves into that development two years from now, right. And that’s gonna be something to you know, that generation, family, and so on, and so forth. So and that community, so to speak. So that, to me is where my I think my optimism lies the most.
Brian Bienkowski
That’s excellent. And I mean, those kinds of collaborations in my work to you, when you start realizing that a lot of people are rowing in the same direction, and you can kind of combine your power is, it really is a bright spot in a lot of this environmental work. So you mentioned earlier, taking the hardest path and being a masochist. And maybe in sports. Well, I’m a Detroit Lions fan. So I, I think I may be when the masochism on that front. But I want to talk about sports, we had a chance in person to talk about this. And I know, we’re both sports fans. So what’s, what role do they play in your life? And who are some of your must-see teams?
Nsilo Berry
Yeah, absolutely. I think sports for me is a big part of kind of what I think about today, I watched less kind of the sport debate shows just because I think they’re so dramatic and really corny at times, but, but I’m always down to have a sports conversation with people that I work with, and things like that. But for me, sports is has been a big part of kind of my development as a person. I think it helps me kind of understand this, this understanding of, you know, when you make a decision, you have to understand a few things associated with that. One, you have to make the choice. So kind of the courage and bravery to do so. The second part is understanding sacrifice, and other part is consequence. So those are those three type of things. I think I learned that from playing sports and understanding that these things all play a role in the space here, especially in a team sport, right? There’s gonna be people next to you, you don’t know how hard in the offseason they’re working to do their, their their game, right. But if they put on that same jersey, as you, they’re your teammate in this moment, and you gotta live with whatever happens in that moment, whether you make this a mistake, whether they make a mistake, it’s, it is what it is, but you have to live with that. And that’s something that you accept when you put that jersey on, right. So that’s the decision you have to make. I think for me understanding consequence and sacrifice, I think about those things when I make decisions today even kind of in my in my work, but also kind of in in my personal life too, as well. And I think it helped me understand that you know, anything worth having, you have to make a certain sacrifice for it. And I think that when we talk about certain things, and we discuss things, maybe on a more kind of political and societal level, I think we, the patterns that we run into, are individuals unable to understand that they have to make the sacrifice, or they don’t want to make a sacrifice, because they want to have it all. And you really can’t have it all. If you want to see the changes that you want to see as a society, we’re gonna have to make a sacrifice on this particular issue. It’s going to be certain consequences, you might get a certain backlash from your group or constituents. But there’s some things that you have to do. We’ve seen that when, when we talked about kind of January 6, and the attack on the Capitol, you saw the Republicans who said, Hey, I think we should have a committee, and you saw the backlash they got from their other constituents on that, right. So those type of things were, that’s the kind of a sacrifice and you get frozen out from that. And you might have just killed your own political career, because you went against the grain of everybody else associated with you, right. And so that’s just one example. But that’s kind of how we talked about it on the bigger scale, and we tried to have it all but you really can’t have it all. You have to make a decision. And I think and I think having that helps me understand, face disappointment, helps me helps me kind of understand success, and helps me how to build upon the next day too. Because that moment doesn’t signify everything for you. You also have the opportunity in the next moment to be better than you were in this previous moment. Whether that whether that was a victory or a loss in that current moment, you can still build upon the next one. And so we’ll be talking about kind of like my favorite teams watch obviously being from me, I should say, obviously, I’m a huge Eagles fan. So watching that stuff, obviously tough loss in the Super Bowl. I don’t want to talk about it – I blame Rihanna dammit, you know, that halftime show. I’m just kidding, just kidding, she was sensational, sensational image, even if she was pregnant she was sensational in that half-time show, really. But somebody like Patrick Mahomes is it’s must-see TV. Like, if you want to lose to somebody, you want to somebody who might be one of the greatest ever do it. Like, he might be those people like you know, we’ve talked about great players he prevented a lot of other great players win winning championships because he was so damn good. That to me is incredible and but also seems more like Andy Reid in it, it takes the pain away less. I did cry dude, after I was mad because I spent so much money on food. I My, People came over, I sent them home, I think I closed my door and I think I just went to sleep. I maybe cried. I think I woke up I saw some tears my pillows. But the point is that but people like that it’s just people you have to, you have to respect people like that. Those people who go through it, who fought he was having a bad ankle, he fought through it, still was able to a way to get through it. Even Jalen Hurts, our own quarterback, bad fumble comes back brings the team back, he was going toe to toe with him, with Patrick Mahomes. And so someone like that is someone you’re incredibly proud of as Eagles fan to see that. So, for me, it’s always going to be the Eagles, Mercy TV. And now so I’m Patty. So Dallas is my must-see TV two, because they’re going to disappoint you, when you need the most to do it. They’re gonna disappoint you too. So there must-see TV too, for me as well. So, but no, I think that’s sports, for me is an incredible moment and something that I think about even to this day, and I love of course, the competition of it, there’s some competition, I think is is very beneficial for your growth. People understand it’s not about the person you’re facing on the field or wherever you are, that person is a physical manifestation of an impediment in that moment, because I personally want to change next week when you come to a different type of game, right? So it’s not the person, that’s important, right? It’s that moment, and how do you overcome that moment, and that’s the preparation to your teamwork, to the sacrifice, to the consequence, all those decision making. That’s what’s important in that space. And I love that part of sports so much.
Brian Bienkowski
I do too. And I think you put it really well, all the lessons you draw from playing sports and, and watching it to a large extent too and learning from the people that that that put up all that sacrifice. There’s a couple other things I’d add, and maybe they’re not as important, but I feel like sports is a real connector for me. I mean, the first time I met you, I mean, we talked about it I when I when I don’t see my uncle’s who maybe I disagree with on all kinds of other things. It’s something it’s common, it’s just common ground. It’s something that we connect with. And the other thing is it’s it’s relatively light. Like I could listen to podcasts on sports throughout the day and not feel the existential crises of the work that we engage in. So I like that about it a lot too. Awesome. Well, the sale this has been a lot of fun. I have a few more questions here. And this is just rapid fire three questions where you can just answer with one word, or a phrase. So if I could vacation, anywhere it would be
Nsilo Berry
I’d be in a submarine or on a boat, traveling the seas for an extended period of time that I would do something like that, something involving the water
Brian Bienkowski
I like that. My first concert was
Nsilo Berry
My mom took me to, when I was little, KC and the Sunshine Band. They were on tour somewhere I think in Virginia, something like that. So I went to one of their concerts,
Brian Bienkowski
Man, that is a that is a really good one. If I could have dinner with one person living or deceased, it would be
Nsilo Berry
Baseball opening day’s around the corner, Jackie Robinson. I would love to talk to him.
Brian Bienkowski
Another great one. Well Nsilo, what is the last book you read for fun and you don’t have to confine yourself to one word or phrase here.
Nsilo Berry
I did The Little Prince and check this pronunciation now: by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. You see, I didn’t practice it, practice that right before the podcast everybody. I’m just kidding. I practiced that right before the podcast, I was practicing in the greenroom. But no, I think the Little Prince is it’s essentially just about a pilot who crashes lands on a planet. And meets this Little Prince, and they just have a conversation about life and talk about these different things like this. And so it’s a really interesting journey about kind of just finding your own growth in your own space. Something similar too. if you’ve ever had the collection of short stories of The Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling. It’s not the kind of thing about that when Mowgli is kind of going through his own his own kind of transition where he kind of missed the jungle. But he gets to a point where Bagheera the Panther tells him say, hey, Mowgli, like you’re of age, you’re your of age now and the people that you, you know that we will always love you. But that’s not who you are. You have to go be with your people. And you have to go can experience life on your own and on your own terms. And that’s something that I think about a lot too, especially growing up in from St. Louis, like, you move away from those people that are your best friends and all your childhood friends. And you have to grow and experience the world that the way that you know for what’s best for you. And that’s always a I think it’s always a tough intersection to overcome. And think about, but books like that always helped me kind of just think about kind of similarities in those tough choices we think about kind of in life today and so on, so forth.
Brian Bienkowski
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. It’s been really great to hear more about your work and your personal story. Nsilo, thanks so much for doing this.
Right-Sizing Traffic Enforcement for Safer Roadways
Duration: 00:19:07
Released: 2026
Series: Public Health On Call
About this episode: The U.S. stands out among peer countries for having the worst rate of traffic deaths. Approaching this issue from a public health angle can help to make roadways safer by focusing on population-level interventions rather than directing resources towards policing “bad apple” individuals. In this episode: Tiffany Joyce Smith, lead author of a new report on the role of enforcement in road safety, explains the value of a proactive approach to preventing crashes versus a reactive one. Guest: Tiffany Joyce Smith, MPH, is a public health and mobility expert and program advisor with the Vision Zero Network. Host: Dr. Josh Sharfstein is distinguished professor of the practice in Health Policy and Management, a pediatrician, and former secretary of Maryland’s Health Department. He served as the Baltimore City Commissioner of Health from 2005 to 2009. Show links and related content: Right-Sizing the Role of Traffic Enforcement: Prioritizing Effective, Cost-Efficient and Equitable Improvements to Road Safety—Vision Zero Network Money Drove Criminal Justice System In Ferguson, DOJ Report Says—NPR The Surprising Benefits of Narrower Traffic Lanes—Public Health On Call (November 2023) Why Are So Many Pedestrians Getting Struck and Killed By Cars, and Why Aren’t We Doing More To Stop It?—Public Health On Call (July 2023) Transcript information: Looking for episode transcripts? Open our podcast on the Apple Podcasts app (desktop or mobile) or the Spotify mobile app to access an auto-generated transcript of any episode. Closed captioning is also available for every episode on our YouTube channel. Contact us: Have a question about something you heard? Looking for a transcript? Want to suggest a topic or guest? Contact us via email or visit our website. Follow us: @PublicHealthPod on Bluesky @PublicHealthPod on Instagram @JohnsHopkinsSPH on Facebook @PublicHealthOnCall on YouTube Here’s our RSS feed Note: These podcasts are a conversation between the participants, and do not represent the position of Johns Hopkins University.
Sabah Usmani on making cities healthy and just
Duration: 00:39:44
Released: 2023
Series: Agents of Change in Environmental Justice
Sabah Usmani joins the Agents of Change in Environmental Justice podcast to discuss the role of urban planners in tackling environmental injustice.
What can design do for public health?
Duration: 00:45:36
Released: 2019
Series: Better Off
When many people think of design they’re probably picturing a product, like a new smartphone or car. But the design principles that lead to the creation of those products—such as the focus on human behavior or the use of prototyping—can also be harnessed to tackle complex public health challenges. In this week’s episode you’ll learn how one of the world’s top public health researchers, Ashish Jha, dean for global strategy at Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health and director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, and one of the world’s foremost design experts, Patrick Whitney, professor in residence in the Department of Health Policy and Management, have teamed up to think about how design methods can be used to address issues ranging from the opioid epidemic to the future of hospitals. Full Transcript: hsph.me/design-pod This episode is a collaboration with Harvard Global Health Institute.
Why are scientists planting tiny forests in big cities?
Duration: 00:12:12
Released: 2026
Series: Short Wave
Healthy forests help combat climate change, provide humans with drinking water and even improve mental and physical health. But it’s hard to imagine an entire forest in the middle of a big city. That’s where micro-forests come into play — public forests on a smaller scale, filled with native plants. They exist around the world, and producer Rachel Carlson went to visit the largest micro-forest in California in this encore episode. She joins host Emily Kwong to chat about what she saw. Interested in more of the science behind urban nature? Email us your question at shortwave@npr.org.Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy
Video Clips
A housing alternative right in your own backyard
CBS Sunday Morning, 08 30, 2026
Video (6:36)
Description
Accessory Dwelling Units, or ADUs, are small, fully-functional secondary homes located on the same property as a main home (usually in the backyard) that serve as carriage houses or “granny flats.” But as wildfires have displaced residents in the West, ADUs have filled a vital need where housing has proved scant or expensive. Correspondent Lee Cowan looks at the practical and legal challenges to making ADUs available. [Original air date: May 17, 2026.]
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Transcript
0:01 · Philadelphia is known for all types and styles of homes. Few as memorable as this one, Ardrasen. You might describe it as the embodiment of the Gilded Age, an era of opulence. Today, at a time when the quest for owning a home of your own is increasingly elusive, Lee Cowan shows us one solution almost anyone can find right in your own backyard.
0:28 · This is insane. When the Elmeida fire tore through the Rogue Valley in southern Oregon back in 2020, it took thousands of homes with it. The result wasn’t just a moonscape, but a housing crisis on top of an already tight rental market.
0:44 · Artist and contractor Jacob Fry and his wife Elise, hi hores, were spared the flames, but not the desire to help. They had to do something. So they took out a loan to build two small rental units in their own yard.
1:00 · So this was never about getting extra income or it was more about the community and like needing, you know, needing infill housing for people that had been displaced really was the main the main thing.
1:14 · They’re called ADUs, accessory dwelling units, small, fully functional secondary homes located on the same property as the main home, usually in the backyard. They’ve been called granny flats, carriage houses, or mother-in-law suites.
1:30 · Start planning your ADU today.
1:32 · A wave of reforms have made it faster and cheaper, and in theory anyway, legally simpler to add these ADUs almost anywhere. In California, at least three modestsiz units are now allowed on a single family lot. Now, they can’t be used as short-term rentals, so no Airbnb. The law allows for only long-term tenants, and it’s become a booming industry.
1:58 · It’s had more impact than any other housing law uh in the last 10 12 years.
2:04 · In what way?
2:05 · Well, there are 82,000 building permits right now in California.
2:10 · Yeah.
2:10 · Dana Cuff, professor of architecture and urban design at UCLA, helped push the original legislation through. We met her in her ADU. So where we’re sitting used to be your backyard.
2:22 · That’s right. Well, this used to be That’s right. There was kind of a half dead citrus tree probably right here and a treehouse for our kids. And you know, we did lose something in building the house, but we gained a lot more.
2:35 · They rent their original home to mostly young tenants just starting out and they live in the ADU designed by her husband to fit like a Tetris piece onto their long skinny lot. sprawl has hit the wall now. So, you can’t keep going out. So, then I mean the beauty of that from an environmental and a housing and an urban perspective is that then you start building back in.
2:57 · It will come as no surprise when you’re talking about building in backyards. There are plenty of not in my backyard critics.
3:03 · This is not granny flats. This is not helping people.
3:07 · Some argue parking, sewer, garbage, the infrastructure designed for single family homes is being stretched too thin. But in the aftermath of those Oregon fires, the Fries saw an opportunity.
3:18 · They say, you know, if you want to test your marriage, buy IKEA furniture, you know, build an ADU.
3:24 · It worked out. The Fry marriage survived, and so did the rental income from the ADUs. In fact, the buildings have almost paid for themselves, even though they continue to rent them at well below market value.
3:35 · We want things to be affordable, you know, so that we can get people in that might not otherwise be able to get a decent situation with a decent landlord. Both the tenants that live here now are like young newlyweds. Like they’re in their early 20s and they both just got married.
3:51 · If this hadn’t been an option for you, where do you think you guys would have been?
3:55 · Probably still at our parents’ houses.
3:58 · It’s compact living to be sure, but if you design an ADU right, it can feel much bigger than it sounds. making this.
4:07 · Jared Weber, Katrina Bowser Smith, and their one-year-old daughter Miller have been living in these 400 square ft happily for nearly 3 years now.
4:17 · We tried to look at other places just to even see what there is still on the market, and there’s nothing comparable to what we have.
4:25 · So, it’s small, but it’s enough.
4:27 · It’s perfect.
4:28 · Perfect.
4:28 · So, I don’t feel cramped at all. I feel like I have a lot of space for one old lady.
4:34 · Down the coast in Los Angeles, 72-year-old Mona Field turned her garage into a two-bedroom ADU.
4:40 · So, were you using your garage before?
4:42 · The garage was everybody and their brother’s storage. [laughter] Everywhere I look, I see green. So, I like that.
4:50 · But she didn’t build the ADU for tenants. She built it for herself.
4:55 · I knew I did not want to stay, you know, aging in a big house by myself. And there’s Miss Ruth.
5:02 · The ADU was her retirement home, which allowed her to offer her house as affordable housing for her daughter.
5:09 · Raise your hand.
5:10 · Raise your hand if you’re having fun.
5:11 · And her family.
5:12 · Do you want to help, baby?
5:14 · Naen Levyfield, her husband, Charlie Marshack, and their two small kids.
5:19 · What is that?
5:20 · A microphone.
5:22 · But there was still a question, one asked by almost everyone in the 80year space. even though we had separate spaces, would we be able to, you know, cohabitate on the same property in a functional way?
5:33 · The answer for them anyway has been a resounding yes.
5:37 · You know, we have regular standing dinners with my mom and the kids. My mom helps with child care. We spend time together. We say, “Hey, do you want to join us for a stroller walk, which is really a gift.
5:46 · It’s amazing. We’re so grateful.”
5:48 · Oh, there you are.
5:51 · Well, now you’re getting the fun part.
5:53 · It used to be a home in the suburbs with a white picket fence and two-car garage was all anyone would want. Today, people need housing more than cars, and backyard barbecues might not need an entire backyard. They may not be for everyone, but these days, every square foot matters. Adus offer a different lifestyle for a different age.
6:18 · We have to start imagining new ways of living together. Well,
A Mother’s Asthma-friendly Housing Story
American Lung Association, 12 11, 2014
Video (1:06)
Description
Smoking in multi-unit housing poses serious health threats to children and adults even if no one smokes in their home. In multi-unit housing like apartment buildings and condominiums, secondhand smoke from one unit can move into other units. Smoking in multi-unit housing can also lead to fires, which can have deadly consequences. The videos below feature stories from residents, firemen, and public health advocates who have worked to make multi-unit housing properties smokefree.
Transcript
A public housing project where healthy living is the foundation
PBS NewsHour, 07 07, 2017
Video (6:29)
Description
In downtown Denver, a recently built public housing project is designed to foster healthy living, with access to nutritious food, access to doctors and ease of exercise and public transportation. Jeffrey Brown reports.
Transcript
0:00 · JUDY WOODRUFF: But first: an experiment in rethinking public housing that encourages healthier living by changing the larger environment for residents.
0:09 · Jeffrey Brown reports from Denver.
0:12 · JEFFREY BROWN: At age 71, Noel Taylor says she’s become more active and health-conscious than ever before.
0:19 · NOEL TAYLOR, Denver: Every year, I improve my diet, I improve my exercise.
0:25 · JEFFREY BROWN: Her change in behavior didn’t happen by accident.
0:28 · Four years ago, here in downtown Denver, Taylor joined an experiment in making healthy living part of the design and daily life of a public housing project.
0:38 · Among the amenities here, access to a garden plot.
0:42 · NOEL TAYLOR: I noticed, all summer long, I was getting healthier.
0:45 · The more of my own vegetables I was eating, the more energy I had.
0:51 · It’s made a huge difference.
0:52 · JEFFREY BROWN: So, this sounds all too good to be true.
0:54 · NOEL TAYLOR: I know.
0:56 · (LAUGHTER) JEFFREY BROWN: And there’s more.
0:58 · The Denver Botanic Gardens hosts a farmers market giving away free produce to residents.
1:03 · WOMAN: We’re going to talk about how to shop healthy on a budget.
1:06 · JEFFREY BROWN: Another group offers classes on healthy recipes and shopping.
1:10 · MAN: Now we will take your blood pressure.
1:12 · JEFFREY BROWN: In a clinic on the ground floor of one building, public health physicians schedule regular visits to do routine checkups.
1:19 · There’s a light rail stop, both for easy transportation and to get residents out of their cars.
1:25 · MAN: Do the other side now.
1:27 · JEFFREY BROWN: Plus, bike rentals and a nearby shop to teach kids how to maintain their bikes.
1:33 · Even the architecture and public art was designed to encourage residents to get outside and take a walk.
1:40 · ISMAEL GUERRERO, Director, Denver Housing Authority: We really wanted this to look like a neighborhood, not a development.
1:43 · JEFFREY BROWN: Ismael Guerrero, director of the Denver Housing Authority, says that, 10 years ago, this was a high-crime neighborhood, with 250 units of rundown public housing.
1:55 · Something had to be done.
1:56 · ISMAEL GUERRERO: What we learned in early conversations with residents in particular was, they didn’t just want a new unit to move into.
2:04 · They wanted a better quality of life.
2:05 · So we really started expanding our perspective on what we were trying to accomplish here.
2:10 · JEFFREY BROWN: The result completed earlier this summer is the Mariposa development, a mixture of 800 apartments and town homes, one-third public housing, a third subsidized, and a third rented at market value.
2:24 · The overall cost was $150 million; $60 million came from federal, state and local government programs, with the rest coming through private investment.
2:34 · Already, Mariposa is becoming a model for rethinking public housing.
2:39 · ISMAEL GUERRERO: Part of it is physical health, and part of it is what we call neighborhood health.
2:45 · Right?
2:46 · How healthy is the place?
2:47 · Is it safe?
2:48 · Are there healthy activities for you to do?
2:50 · Is there healthy food in the neighborhood for you to go and eat?
2:53 · Is there a healthy economy where people can get jobs and start a business?
2:56 · JEFFREY BROWN: The Osage Cafe, located in one of the apartment buildings, is designed to meet some of those needs.
3:04 · In addition to the food, it provides culinary training and internships for young people in the neighborhood, like 20-year-old Israel Trejo.
3:12 · ISRAEL TREJO, Denver: And I think that’s where I discovered I had a passion for cooking.
3:15 · JEFFREY BROWN: What did it give you?
3:16 · ISRAEL TREJO: It gave me the entire world, basically.
3:19 · Like, with the skills that I have learned now, I could go anywhere.
3:23 · I could go be anything.
3:24 · JEFFREY BROWN: Trejo now has a job at one of Denver’s top restaurants, and plans to operate his own food truck soon.
3:30 · ANGELA RODRIGUEZ, Denver: Are you looking forward to helping me grow some fruits and vegetables?
3:36 · JEFFREY BROWN: Angela Rodriguez, a single mother of two teens, dreams of one day buying her own home.
3:42 · She has a full-time job at a nearby community college, but Denver’s booming housing market makes ownership difficult.
3:50 · She lives in a subsidized town home at Mariposa, which she says is very different from the old-style projects she grew up in nearby.
3:57 · ANGELA RODRIGUEZ: As a new style of public housing, it did take me a little bit of time for the adjustment.
4:03 · When new tenants are mingling with other tenants that come from different walks of life, it’s helping us to develop into new perspectives of modern living.
4:13 · JEFFREY BROWN: Rodriguez uses public transportation, has taken up gardening, and has fully embraced the culture of health that is promoted here.
4:22 · But is Mariposa working?
4:24 · It’s too early for definitive answers.
4:27 · According to a 2015 study by the Denver Public Health Department, about half the residents had participated in health-related activities over the previous three years.
4:38 · But the study also showed the amount of exercise residents pursued had changed little.
4:43 · Just over a third said they exercised five times a week.
4:47 · About the same amount said they exercised one to four times a week, and 26 percent said they rarely or never exercised.
4:55 · Smoking rates decreased, but only slightly, from 30 percent of residents down to 24 percent.
5:01 · And these so-called active staircases, designed with a bit of whimsy…
5:05 · ISMAEL GUERRERO: It’s a way to engage kids, and actually now the adults enjoy it.
5:09 · JEFFREY BROWN: … to lure residents away from using the elevator.
5:12 · Well, so far, they’re not having a big impact.
5:15 · THERESA MICKIEWICZ, Denver Public Health: We actually did observational counts, where we sat there and we counted people who used the stairs vs. people who used the elevator, and we compared it against a control staircase in the Mariposa redevelopment, and we found absolutely no difference.
5:32 · JEFFREY BROWN: Theresa Mickiewicz, an epidemiologist with Denver Public Health, is overseeing a study of the development.
5:38 · And while major improvements in health remain to be seen, she believes something important is happening here, and she expects the numbers to reflect that soon.
5:47 · THERESA MICKIEWICZ: While maintaining my objectivity as an evaluator, do I think that there is value in this type of project?
5:55 · I would say yes.
5:57 · Individually, these components have been shown in the evidence, in literature, to improve health outcomes.
6:04 · JEFFREY BROWN: The city of Denver is so confident in this new model, it’s about to embark on a similar development that will be three times larger than Mariposa.
6:13 · That construction is expected to begin later next year.
6:17 · For the “PBS NewsHour,” I’m Jeffrey Brown, reporting from Denver.
A public housing project where healthy living is the foundation
PBS NewsHour, 07 07, 2017
Video (6:29)
Description
In downtown Denver, a recently built public housing project is designed to foster healthy living, with access to nutritious food, access to doctors and ease of exercise and public transportation. Jeffrey Brown reports.
Transcript
0:00 · JUDY WOODRUFF: But first: an experiment in rethinking public housing that encourages healthier living by changing the larger environment for residents.
0:09 · Jeffrey Brown reports from Denver.
0:12 · JEFFREY BROWN: At age 71, Noel Taylor says she’s become more active and health-conscious than ever before.
0:19 · NOEL TAYLOR, Denver: Every year, I improve my diet, I improve my exercise.
0:25 · JEFFREY BROWN: Her change in behavior didn’t happen by accident.
0:28 · Four years ago, here in downtown Denver, Taylor joined an experiment in making healthy living part of the design and daily life of a public housing project.
0:38 · Among the amenities here, access to a garden plot.
0:42 · NOEL TAYLOR: I noticed, all summer long, I was getting healthier.
0:45 · The more of my own vegetables I was eating, the more energy I had.
0:51 · It’s made a huge difference.
0:52 · JEFFREY BROWN: So, this sounds all too good to be true.
0:54 · NOEL TAYLOR: I know.
0:56 · (LAUGHTER) JEFFREY BROWN: And there’s more.
0:58 · The Denver Botanic Gardens hosts a farmers market giving away free produce to residents.
1:03 · WOMAN: We’re going to talk about how to shop healthy on a budget.
1:06 · JEFFREY BROWN: Another group offers classes on healthy recipes and shopping.
1:10 · MAN: Now we will take your blood pressure.
1:12 · JEFFREY BROWN: In a clinic on the ground floor of one building, public health physicians schedule regular visits to do routine checkups.
1:19 · There’s a light rail stop, both for easy transportation and to get residents out of their cars.
1:25 · MAN: Do the other side now.
1:27 · JEFFREY BROWN: Plus, bike rentals and a nearby shop to teach kids how to maintain their bikes.
1:33 · Even the architecture and public art was designed to encourage residents to get outside and take a walk.
1:40 · ISMAEL GUERRERO, Director, Denver Housing Authority: We really wanted this to look like a neighborhood, not a development.
1:43 · JEFFREY BROWN: Ismael Guerrero, director of the Denver Housing Authority, says that, 10 years ago, this was a high-crime neighborhood, with 250 units of rundown public housing.
1:55 · Something had to be done.
1:56 · ISMAEL GUERRERO: What we learned in early conversations with residents in particular was, they didn’t just want a new unit to move into.
2:04 · They wanted a better quality of life.
2:05 · So we really started expanding our perspective on what we were trying to accomplish here.
2:10 · JEFFREY BROWN: The result completed earlier this summer is the Mariposa development, a mixture of 800 apartments and town homes, one-third public housing, a third subsidized, and a third rented at market value.
2:24 · The overall cost was $150 million; $60 million came from federal, state and local government programs, with the rest coming through private investment.
2:34 · Already, Mariposa is becoming a model for rethinking public housing.
2:39 · ISMAEL GUERRERO: Part of it is physical health, and part of it is what we call neighborhood health.
2:45 · Right?
2:46 · How healthy is the place?
2:47 · Is it safe?
2:48 · Are there healthy activities for you to do?
2:50 · Is there healthy food in the neighborhood for you to go and eat?
2:53 · Is there a healthy economy where people can get jobs and start a business?
2:56 · JEFFREY BROWN: The Osage Cafe, located in one of the apartment buildings, is designed to meet some of those needs.
3:04 · In addition to the food, it provides culinary training and internships for young people in the neighborhood, like 20-year-old Israel Trejo.
3:12 · ISRAEL TREJO, Denver: And I think that’s where I discovered I had a passion for cooking.
3:15 · JEFFREY BROWN: What did it give you?
3:16 · ISRAEL TREJO: It gave me the entire world, basically.
3:19 · Like, with the skills that I have learned now, I could go anywhere.
3:23 · I could go be anything.
3:24 · JEFFREY BROWN: Trejo now has a job at one of Denver’s top restaurants, and plans to operate his own food truck soon.
3:30 · ANGELA RODRIGUEZ, Denver: Are you looking forward to helping me grow some fruits and vegetables?
3:36 · JEFFREY BROWN: Angela Rodriguez, a single mother of two teens, dreams of one day buying her own home.
3:42 · She has a full-time job at a nearby community college, but Denver’s booming housing market makes ownership difficult.
3:50 · She lives in a subsidized town home at Mariposa, which she says is very different from the old-style projects she grew up in nearby.
3:57 · ANGELA RODRIGUEZ: As a new style of public housing, it did take me a little bit of time for the adjustment.
4:03 · When new tenants are mingling with other tenants that come from different walks of life, it’s helping us to develop into new perspectives of modern living.
4:13 · JEFFREY BROWN: Rodriguez uses public transportation, has taken up gardening, and has fully embraced the culture of health that is promoted here.
4:22 · But is Mariposa working?
4:24 · It’s too early for definitive answers.
4:27 · According to a 2015 study by the Denver Public Health Department, about half the residents had participated in health-related activities over the previous three years.
4:38 · But the study also showed the amount of exercise residents pursued had changed little.
4:43 · Just over a third said they exercised five times a week.
4:47 · About the same amount said they exercised one to four times a week, and 26 percent said they rarely or never exercised.
4:55 · Smoking rates decreased, but only slightly, from 30 percent of residents down to 24 percent.
5:01 · And these so-called active staircases, designed with a bit of whimsy…
5:05 · ISMAEL GUERRERO: It’s a way to engage kids, and actually now the adults enjoy it.
5:09 · JEFFREY BROWN: … to lure residents away from using the elevator.
5:12 · Well, so far, they’re not having a big impact.
5:15 · THERESA MICKIEWICZ, Denver Public Health: We actually did observational counts, where we sat there and we counted people who used the stairs vs. people who used the elevator, and we compared it against a control staircase in the Mariposa redevelopment, and we found absolutely no difference.
5:32 · JEFFREY BROWN: Theresa Mickiewicz, an epidemiologist with Denver Public Health, is overseeing a study of the development.
5:38 · And while major improvements in health remain to be seen, she believes something important is happening here, and she expects the numbers to reflect that soon.
5:47 · THERESA MICKIEWICZ: While maintaining my objectivity as an evaluator, do I think that there is value in this type of project?
5:55 · I would say yes.
5:57 · Individually, these components have been shown in the evidence, in literature, to improve health outcomes.
6:04 · JEFFREY BROWN: The city of Denver is so confident in this new model, it’s about to embark on a similar development that will be three times larger than Mariposa.
6:13 · That construction is expected to begin later next year.
6:17 · For the “PBS NewsHour,” I’m Jeffrey Brown, reporting from Denver.
Greenlining Fund Invests in Omaha’s Historically Redlined Neighborhoods
The Omaha News, 03 12, 2025
Video (1:32)
Description
The Omaha News streams live every Wednesday at 4 p.m. on YouTube, Facebook and The Knowledge Network (TKN) during the academic year. The half-hour newscast also airs state-wide on NET reaching all of Nebraska’s 1.9 million residents.
Our mission is to fully immerse University of Nebraska at Omaha journalists into the business of reporting and investigating live, local stories that impact our region. Located in the Community of Public Affairs and Community Service building, our newsroom is home to state-of-the-art facilities and award-winning journalism.
#TheOmahaNews #LocalNews #StayTuned #ThePeopleAreTheStory #Greenlining
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Transcript
0:02 · front porch Investments green lining fund is helping homeowners in historically Redline areas invest in their properties and enhance the community redlining is the practice of denying loans and services to minority neighborhoods which led to long-term disinvestment and though outlawed in 1968 its effects still linger Yolanda
0:19 · Williams housing Justice and grants manager at front porch Investments says this impact is still evident today how can this impact North Omaha residents particularly the black North Omaha residents that’s struggle to find affordable housing that are struggling with home ownership and just the valuations of these homes are much lower than counterparts in you know Midtown or West Omaha in 2023 the green lining fund launched a program providing 0% interest loans of up to $5,000 per property to
0:48 · help homeowners with critical repairs These funds support Home Improvements and Renovations aiming to stabilize households and address critical housing needs etel Lopez CEO of the Latino Economic Development Council says many homeowners are forced to choose between basic maintenance and other essential costs and it’s expensive I mean you talk about you know replacing a window all of this windows in my home office have not been replaced and it’s really cold here do I want to replace the windows which is you know going to cost me so much or
1:17 · do I want to pay a higher monthly bill the green Ling fund isn’t just about fixing homes it’s about restoring investment empowering residents and ensuring North and South Omaha communities can Thrive for generations for the Omaha news I’m marry mitoff
Healthy living in the Philippines
CNN, 04 07, 2013
Video (2:57)
Description
A major housing development in the Philippines tries to combine happy and healthy living. Pauline Chiou reports. For more CNN videos, visit our site at http://www.cnn.com/video/
Transcript
Housing and Health
Northern California Public Media, 07 31, 2017
Video (2:04)
Description
KRCB North Bay Public Media and the Sonoma County Department of Health Services have partnered to raise awareness about the ways in which the social determinants of health affect our community. This Health Connections video explores the direct impact homelessness and inadequate housing have on public health and how better housing can lead to better health for all.
Transcript
0:03 · in our local area our most recent homeless census told us that over 63 percent of the people living on the streets here in Greenville were residents of Western Sonoma County before becoming homeless another 20% were permanent residents of Sonoma County these are our local residents who have been priced out of housing homelessness and lack of adequate housing have a detrimental impact on health access to adequate food to
0:31 · shelter to transportation these are all things that greatly impact somebody’s overall help section 8 subsidized housing aims to make rent more affordable for qualifying low income residents however it can often be challenging finding a landlord willing to accept the section 8 voucher you’re stressed out about not having a place to live than here that’s going to be your primary focus it’s a great stressor when
0:59 · you’re homeless you don’t have a cook stove you don’t have a way to heat food you tend to want to eat pre-prepared meals and you tend to want to do that in the most affordable way possible and in America that means fast food you’re eating sugary stuff because that’s what’s available a lot of processed foods not so much of the fresh vegetables and fruits because you have no refrigeration you have no way to keep it many who are homeless must resort to using the emergency room to address their basic health needs when somebody
1:26 · is using the emergency room as their primary care home we have a real problem and the cost-saving measure is for the health care system to invest in housing because when we have somebody we know that within the first 90 days their dependence on the emergency rooms decreases by over 50% there is a clear relationship between good housing and good health housing along with all the
1:50 · stability that provides greatly impacts somebody’s ability to live a long productive healthy life you
Housing Segregation and Redlining in America A Short History Code Switch NPR
NPR, 04 11, 2018
Video (6:36)
Description
In 1968, Congress passed the Fair Housing Act that made it illegal to discriminate in housing. Gene Demby of NPR’s Code Switch explains why neighborhoods are still so segregated today.
• Read “How Segregation Shapes Fatal Police Violence” at https://n.pr/2Ic6A1Q
• Read or listen to: “‘The Color Of Law’ Details How U.S. Housing Policies Created Segregation” at https://n.pr/2HgqATh
WHAT’S CODE SWITCH?
It’s the fearless conversations about race that you’ve been waiting for! Hosted by journalists of color, our podcast tackles the subject of race head-on. We explore how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and everything in between. This podcast makes ALL OF US part of the conversation — because we’re all part of the story.
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Transcript
0:00 · Chris Rock: You know what’s so sad, man?
0:00 · You know what’s wild?
0:01 · Martin Luther King stood for nonviolence.
0:03 · Now what’s Martin Luther King?
0:05 · A street.
0:07 · And I don’t give a f*** where you at in America, If you on Martin Luther King Boulevard there’s some violence going down.
0:13 · Gene: That, of course, is Chris Rock’s famous joke about streets named for Martin Luther King Jr., which tend to be in – let’s say distressed areas.
0:22 · And he’s not wrong, because if you look at the way housing segregation works in America you can see how things ended up this way.
0:28 · Once you see it, you won’t be able to unsee it.
0:31 · OK, let’s look at MLK Boulevard in Baltimore.
0:35 · I want to show you how to see housing segregation in schools, in health, in family wealth, in policing.
0:41 · But first, an explanatory comma.
0:45 · It’s the 1930s in the wake of the Great Depression.
0:47 · FDR is president.
0:48 · He wants to bring economic relief to millions of Americans through a collection of federal programs and projects called The New Deal.
0:54 · One part of that “new deal” was The National Housing Act of 1934, which introduced ideas like the 30-year mortgage and low, fixed interest rates.
1:03 · So now you have all these lower-income people who can afford homes, but how do you make sure they don’t default on their new mortgages?
1:09 · Enter the Home Owners Loan Corp.
1:12 · The HOLC created residential security maps.
RESIDENTIAL SECURITY MAPS
1:15 · And these maps? They’re where the term redlining comes from.
1:20 · Green meant “best area, best people,” aka businessmen; blue meant “good people,” like white-collar families; yellow meant a “declining area,” with working class families; and red meant “detrimental influences, hazardous,” like “foreign-born” people, “low-class whites,” and – most significantly – “Negroes.”
1:41 · Again and again on these HOLC maps, one of the most consistent criteria for redlined neighborhoods is the presence of black and
brown people.
1:49 · Let’s be clear.
1:50 · Studies show that people who lived in redlined areas were not necessarily more likely to default on their mortgages.
1:57 · But redlining made it difficult — if not impossible — to buy or refinance.
2:02 · So landlords abandon their properties.
2:04 · City services become unreliable.
2:06 · In most places, crime increases.
2:09 · And property values drop.
2:11 · All of these conditions fester for 30 years as white people flee to the brand new suburbs popping up all over the country.
2:18 · Many of those suburbs institute rules, called covenants, that explicitly forbid selling homes to black people.
2:23 · And all of this was perfectly legal.
2:27 · Now it’s 1968.
2:29 · And MLK is assassinated.
2:31 · News Report: Good evening.
2:32 · The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, 39 years old, The apostle of nonviolence in the civil rights movement has been shot to death in Memphis, Tenn.
2:39 · Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tenn.
2:42 · In the aftermath, Congress passes the Fair Housing Act of 1968.
2:47 · It’s a policy meant to encourage equal housing opportunities regardless of race, or religion or national origin.
2:52 · And it offers protections for future homeowners and renters, but does little to fix the damage already done.
2:58 · Over the next 50 years, the Fair Housing Act is rarely enforced.
3:02 · So you can still see housing segregation and its effects, in Baltimore and often along any MLK Boulevard in any U.S. city.
3:11 · Like its effects on wealth.
WEALTH
3:13 · So homeownership is the major way Americans create wealth, right?
3:16 · Well, discrimination in housing is the major reason that black families up and down the income scale have a tiny fraction of the family wealth that white families do – even white families with less education and lower incomes.
3:28 · For almost 30 years, 98 percent of FHA loans were handed out to white borrowers.
3:33 · Not only were black neighborhoods redlined, and not only was the Fair Housing Act selectively enforced, if at all, but it is still today much harder for a black person to get a mortgage or home loan than it is for a white person.
3:46 · John: Families are fearful of speaking up about a basic human right that should be afforded to everyone in the world but definitely in the richest country in the world.
3:59 · And housing segregation in schools.
4:02 · The primary way that Americans pay for public schools is by paying property taxes.
4:07 · People who live in more valuable homes have better-funded local schools, better-paid teachers, better school facilities and more resources.
4:15 · Here’s a feedback loop: The better the schools in a neighborhood, the more those homes in that neighborhood are worth.
4:21 · And the higher the property values of those homes, the more money there is for schools.
4:25 · And so on and so on.
4:27 · And housing segregation in health.
4:29 · Because of urban planning that benefited those richer, whiter neighborhoods, people of color are more likely to live near industrial plants that spew toxic fumes; they’re more likely to live far away from grocery stores with fresh food, and in places where
the water isn’t drinkable.
HEALTH
4:43 · They’re more likely to live in neighborhoods with crumbling infrastructure, and in homes with toxic paint.
4:49 · Karen: When you’re living with rats, roaches, and things like that – that’s deplorable.
4:53 · You cannot have that kind of stuff with children running around in the building.
4:56 · A building that may be full of lead.
5:00 · And, not coincidentally, people of color have higher incidences of certain cancers, asthma and heart disease.
5:08 · And housing segregation in policing.
POLICING
5:11 · Housing segregation means we are having vastly different experiences with crime and vastly different experiences with policing.
5:17 · Because our neighborhoods are so segregated, sometimes racial profiling can be camouflaged as spatial profiling — where living in certain areas can make you more likely to be stopped by the police.
5:29 · And it means people have a lot of unnecessary contact with the criminal justice system just because of where they live.
5:38 · Reggie: The problem in our city?
5:41 · The police and the citizens are fighting.
5:43 · They keep targeting my brothers and sisters who don’t really have nothing.
5:49 · And that heavy, aggressive kind of policing that you see in black neighborhoods in particular makes people feel like they can’t trust the police.
5:55 · And when people don’t trust the police, crimes go unsolved and people have to find other ways to keep themselves safe.
6:03 · But, of course, it’s not just Baltimore.
6:05 · Because housing segregation and discrimination fundamentally shape the lives of people in nearly every major American city.
6:14 · It really is in everything.
6:18 · To hear more about how race shapes American life, visit npr.org/codeswitch.
6:23 · I’m Gene Demby. Be easy.
How Green Roofs Can Help Cities NPR
NPR, 07 12, 2017
Video (3:49)
Description
We took a field trip to the largest green roof in New York City. Then we imagined what the city could be like if all of its roof space was green.
Note: A previous version of this video incorrectly thanked the Audubon Society. We meant to thank the NYC Audubon Society.
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Transcript
Intro
0:01 · This is the largest green roof in New York City.
0:04 · It’s in the middle of bustling Manhattan, on top of the Javits Convention Center— a behemoth of a building with a six-block footprint.
0:13 · But the roof hasn’t always been green.
0:16 · Before 2014, it was totally barren.
0:20 · Now, just a few years later, when people walk out onto the roof, they say things like: “Amazing,” “That’s great,” “I didn’t expect this,” “What a surprise.”
0:28 · But besides the great reactions, there are practical benefits.
0:31 · We have 300,000 bees.
0:34 · We’ve seen 25 different species of birds on the roof.
0:36 · We reduced the temperature up here by about six degrees Fahrenheit.
0:39 · And we also save about 7 million gallons of stormwater runoff that’s absorbed in the soil and the plants that are on our roof.
0:46 · We’ve been able to reduce our energy
consumption by about 26 percent, and that translated for us last year
into a saving of about 3 million dollars.
0:55 · That is impressive.
Green Roofs
0:58 · How does one green roof get so much done?
1:01 · And what are all of the NOT green roofs in New York City doing with their lives?
1:06 · First, let’s see how much roof space actually exists.
1:09 · You know, they are a major part of urban landscapes.
1:12 · The the round number that most of us think exists is about 1 billion square feet.
1:18 · One billion with a ‘b.’
1:20 · That’s like 22 times the size of Central Park, in roofs.
1:24 · And in most cities, what isn’t roof is another impermeable surface like road, sidewalk, or parking
lot.
1:31 · And these surfaces create a lot of problems for cities That green roofs can actually help solve.
stormwater runoff
1:38 · Let’s take a look at three of these issues. The first is
stormwater runoff.
1:42 · Rainwater goes in pipes. It combines
with what’s called sanitary water.
1:48 · When there’s too much rainwater, which happens hundreds of times a year around Manhattan, the wastewater treatment
systems shut down, and valves just let the water just, you know, shunt out into the rivers. You know, it’s got human sewage.
2:01 · It’s the biggest source of pathogens to
the Manhattan Island.
2:04 · With green roofs, that water instead of going into the
drain and polluting the environment, ends up just evaporating the atmosphere
through the leaves of these plants.
heat island effect
2:13 · And then, there’s what scientists call the “heat island effect,” which basically means that cities are significantly warmer than the surrounding areas.
2:20 · I’ve seen asphalt roofs get up easily 170, 180 degrees Fahrenheit in the strong sunlight.
2:26 · They absorb about 90 to 95 percent of the sunlight.
2:30 · Green roofs, by comparison are close to air temperatures.
habitat loss
2:34 · Another problem green roofs can help solve is habitat loss.
2:37 · Cities can shrink or destroy the green space that’s crucial for certain plants and
animals to survive.
2:43 · Currently a lot of species might occur in smaller parks throughout the city that are relatively unconnected, But having high densities of green roofs would allow those patches to be more connected.
2:53 · Letting, for example, butterflies travel from patch to patch with lots of stepping stones of green roofs in between.
2:59 · And these are just three of the problems that green roofs can help solve.
conclusion
3:03 · But to really put a dent in any of these issues cities would have to implement green roofs at a large scale.
3:09 · Stuart Gaffin, the research scientist
you heard from earlier, estimates that if all of New York City’s 1 billion square feet of roof space were greened, those green roofs could lower the city’s
temperature by nearly two degrees Fahrenheit and absorb over 10 billion
gallons of stormwater each year.
3:27 · As cities continue to grow, all that empty roof space starts to look more and more like an opportunity, an untapped resource, a future ecosystem of problem-solving meadows in the sky.
How to Fix New York City’s $500M Trash Problem WSJ Pro Perfected
The Wall Street Journal, 08 14, 2026
Video (6:52)
Description
New York City handles nearly 3 million tons of trash a year. And much of it ends up on the curb in loose plastic bags — before getting shipped to landfills outside of the city altogether, on barges and then trains. This system costs the city around $500 million a year. So, can the largest city in the United States modernize its waste management?
WSJ explores how experts and city officials plan to tackle New York City’s giant trash problem.
Chapters:
0:00 NYC’s trash problem
0:34 Possible solutions
1:10 Why the issue exists
1:59 What the sanitation department does now
3:34 The bigger problem
6:13 The bigger solution
Pro Perfected
Experts in engineering and design break down a ubiquitous problem, examining how the world is built and what can make it better.
#NYC #Trash #WSJ
Transcript
NYC’s trash problem
0:00 · Every year, New York City handles nearly three million tons of trash. For decades, mountains of garbage bags have lined the streets, feeding rats and blocking sidewalks.
0:10 · Most people think that garbage goes up to solid waste heaven. It does quite the opposite.
0:15 · Now, the Sanitation Department says it has a solution. Its trash revolution program aims to finally put a lid on the countless garbage bags piling city blocks.
0:24 · But can redesigning the way New Yorkers throw out their trash solve a problem decades in the making?
0:29 · We asked people who know the system best. Steven Cohen is the Director of the Sustainability Management Program at Columbia University, and he says one of New York’s biggest solutions is surprisingly simple, changing how the city stores and collects its garbage. Instead of leaving flimsy trash bags on the sidewalk, the city’s sanitation department is now moving towards sealed containers emptied by mechanized trucks.
Possible solutions
0:55 · The motto of the Sanitation Department is New York’s strongest. And now I think we’re going to call them New York’s smartest because they figured out a way to get the machine to do the work.
1:04 · But changing how New York handles its garbage means undoing a system that’s been in place for more than half a century.
Why the issue exists
1:10 · We used to have metal cans that everybody had to put their garbage in that you would have to wash out after use. People in apartment buildings, superintendents didn’t like doing that so much.
1:21 · That’s how New Yorkers put out their trash until the late 1960s. But when sanitation workers went on strike in 1968, residents switched to plastic garbage bags. And when the strike ended, the bags stayed.
1:33 · This was really great news for the rats because it essentially created a buffet for them all over New York City of free food, because rats have no trouble at all getting into garbage bags.
1:43 · More than 50 years later, trash bags are just as common as the vermin they attract, and the city’s layout makes the problem even harder. Unlike other major American cities, Manhattan was built largely without alleys, leaving garbage with only one place to wait for pickup, the curb. The city is now trying to take those bags off the sidewalk altogether, replacing them with permanent containers like these.
What the sanitation department does now
2:05 · The model that’s used everywhere in the United States, either dumpsters in alleys, or 96 gallon sort of wheeled containers, wasn’t feasible in New York City, because of our density and because of the way that our city’s been built. So we looked to the model used in Europe, the stationary on-street containers, as the solution for a large number of our buildings.
2:27 · Buildings can store trash in these bins throughout the week, and they all get emptied on pickup days.
2:32 · You have a bin that’s made of plastic, that’s very durable, and there’s a lot of garbage in that bin. And you have a mechanical arm picking up a tremendous amount of garbage and dumping it into the truck. The worker you see here is operating a machine and he doesn’t have to go out and pick up the garbage himself.
2:52 · And these bins seem to be working to keep out pests.
2:55 · The pace is a little bit slower, but I think overall, I think for the community it’s great. It does, we’ve seen the difference. I know they’ve been trying to tackle the rat situation, and it’s definitely improved.
3:06 · Businesses have been required to use closed bins since March 2024. And next year, the city plans to expand these residential containers to six more districts. By 2031, officials say New York City will be fully containerized.
3:19 · This is a way to collect the garbage in a more efficient and frankly humane way, protecting the occupational health and safety of the workers. And I think this is really how robotics are changing all sorts of manual labor.
The bigger problem
3:34 · In Cohen’s vision for waste in the city, robotics would also play a larger role, sorting through the trash for recyclables to divert waste from landfills.
3:42 · Humans do not want to spend their day sorting garbage. Robots could care less. And what AI can do is train those robots to really be able to identify what’s coming past them. And as we get better at that, that waste stream suddenly becomes a trove of resources.
4:02 · That could address a much larger challenge for New York. The city has nowhere to put most of its garbage.
4:08 · The first place the waste goes in New York City is to a waste transfer station.
4:12 · New York once relied on its own landfills, but as they filled up, the city gradually closed them. Fresh Kills, which was the largest landfill in the world at the time, closed in 2001.
4:22 · We just ran out of space.
4:24 · Today, New York’s trash is offloaded at transfer stations, packed into shipping containers, and sent to landfills and waste-to-energy plants across the country. That process costs around $500 million per year. Waste-to-energy plants burn garbage to generate usable energy, offering an alternative to burying trash in landfills. But either way, the city still has to send its waste away.
4:45 · In the map here, what you see is that, once we could no longer landfill in the five boroughs, we had to go outside the city. And you can see we go already 1,000 miles or longer to find a place to bring our garbage. We go wherever we can.
5:05 · We’re constantly looking.
5:07 · That problem is only going to get worse.
5:10 · We are going to be forced to ship our trash further and further, to places in the south and the Midwest where there’s more space, there’s more landfills, there’s more capacity. And that’s going to become really expensive.
5:22 · Cohen’s proposal could change that equation by reducing how much waste needs to be shipped out of the city in the first place.
5:27 · The long-term vision I would have would be to build a waste processing plant that uses artificial intelligence and robotics to separate the useful resources and create separate places for those substances to be reused.
5:46 · This concept already exists.
5:48 · Materials processing facilities use automated systems to sort recyclables, but Cohen’s proposal is more ambitious, applying that technology to New York’s entire waste stream. Some tech companies are already experimenting with robots that can sort waste autonomously, separating out materials of all categories to be repurposed. In New York, Cohen says the technology would be economically transformative, using trash as a product to be sold rather than disposed of.
The bigger solution
6:13 · The question is how a city as large as New York can implement this technology in the long term. The Sanitation Department has multiple programs in place for recycling and composting, but the technology is still developing. So as New York’s trash disposal gets more expensive, recovering what’s inside could become increasingly valuable. But making that vision a reality requires a lot more than just rethinking the city’s trash collection.
6:36 · Anything that isn’t grown, anything that isn’t organic is finite. And at a certain point, digging it out of the planet becomes more expensive than digging it out of your garbage.
North Omaha Legacies & More
North Omaha Legacies North Omaha Legacies & More Nebraska Stories Nebraska Public Media
Nebraska Public Media, 04 11, 2023
Video (8:03)
Description
Launched in January of 2022, Preston Love, Jr. guides us on a tour of his beloved North Omaha that celebrates the past and embraces the future. Come along and learn about this historic neighborhood, including a visit to “The Street of Dreams.”
Transcript
0:00 · (light jazz music) (light jazz music) (light jazz music) (light jazz music) [Preston] Well, the truth of
the matter is I’m passionate about my beloved
community, North Omaha, and that passion has taken
on the form of me wanting everyone who comes in
contact or who does not to learn more about
our community, its history and its culture.
0:31 · (mellow jazz music) [Narrator] Writer, activist
and native Nebraskan Preston Love Jr., is
on a mission to change people’s perspectives on
the North Omaha community and he’s found an innovative
way to do it by bringing them to the historically African
American neighborhood.
0:49 · it’s[Preston] That’s why I’m
doing the tour for the purpose of educating
and hopefully waking up people and making them more
aware of this wonderful, my beloved, but wonderful,
glorious community.
1:04 · [Narrator] Called the
North Omaha Legacy Tour it focuses on the
rich heritage, legacy and historical contributions
of the community.
1:13 · It begins with a short
orientation to provide context for the tour, followed
by a drive through areas that are culturally significant.
1:23 · (light jazz music) [Preston] The Omaha Star
is historic in so many ways but it tells a story
about a community, like communities
all over this nation who grew their own things because of racism and
discrimination and bigotry.
1:42 · The Omaha Star was
founded in 1938 by a very eccentric woman by the name of Mildred Brown.
1:51 · Mildred Brown was a
unique lady in her day because she was an African
American business woman in a day where
there weren’t a lot and she was a go-getter,
she started that business.
2:04 · It is still going, but The
Star has quite a history.
2:08 · It was started with the idea
that it would only write the good news about the
residents of North Omaha and it has stayed
with that all along.
2:20 · You have the most
current edition in your pack that I gave you.
2:24 · (light jazz music) [Preston] The Great Plains
Black History Museum is a chronicle in itself.
2:30 · It’s a tour within four
walls, if you will.
2:34 · And so, it has great, great
value for people to learn about the past and how it
connects with the future.
2:42 · Many things I’m going
to turn you over to the executive director of the Great Plains Museum, Eric Ewing.
2:54 · [Eric] As you look around
the exhibit that you’ll find in this space is the
history of historically Black colleges and universities.
3:01 · This is a year long
exhibit, so actually, even what you see right now
by the end of this week, it will be 10 to
eight new institutions because there’s so many schools we couldn’t feature
’em all at once, so what we decided to do was
make it a year long exhibit and each month we change
out the institutions that are on display.
3:23 · [Narrator] But this
tour isn’t just about North Omaha’s past, it’s about revitalizing this
once thriving community.
3:31 · [Preston] We visit some
of our community gardens which are propping up.
3:36 · We visit and comment on
the amount of vacant lots that are unutilized
property in the community.
3:45 · We visit the many wonderful
new and exciting murals in the community and then we visit the
significant residuals of this long-term
community disinvestment, the community’s
economic devastation.
4:02 · All of that is caught up and is mentioned and
part of the tour as well.
4:08 · [Narrator] It also
includes a stop at the site that was once home to
the first Black honoree in the Nebraska Hall of Fame.
4:16 · [Preston] The Malcolm X
Center speaks for itself in my mind because people
are interested and some are just learning that the
iconic Malcolm X was born in this community and so
we go to his birth site.
4:33 · It’s a natural and
it is significant.
4:36 · [Schmeeka] Thank you everyone
for being on this great tour for stopping to visit us here at the Malcolm X
Memorial Foundation.
4:45 · We want everyone to come and
learn the truth of who he was as a man, as a child, as
a husband, as a father, and learn and help
support our mission in uplifting this community.
4:57 · [Narrator] Opening minds
and changing opinions is what Preston Love Jr. hopes
to achieve through the tour, and it seems to be working.
5:05 · Well, the things with
the Malcolm X thing at the end of the tour
was interesting to me.
5:11 · I mean, the things that we
heard about Malcolm X years ago were not very nice
to say the least, and so to see what’s happened and how the people here
have taken an interest in showing what he really did and things that have happened
and are trying to make changes in this whole area based
on his foundation here.
5:35 · So, I think that’s fantastic.
5:37 · Probably one of the
most exciting things that I can mention
about the tour, which was expected,
but underestimated was the economic impact
that we’re having on this poverty
stricken community.
5:54 · Since we’ve started,
our estimate is that we have impacted financially over
$50,000 of money that has come into the community
that would not have come if it weren’t for the tour.
6:07 · That’s the tours, buying from
our retail since they’re here, having meals here
since they’re here returning after the tour.
6:18 · (upbeat jazz music) [Gladys] What being a part
of the Legacy tour has done for Big Mama’s is, you know,
continue my mom’s vision of bringing people
together over great food.
6:31 · The tours bring folks
from all over the state, from all walks of life
and in these crazy times that we live in, we need
things to bring people together and my mother always felt that
you could change the world if you prepared
somebody a great meal.
6:45 · (upbeat jazz music) [Preston] I think the tour
is serving a great purpose.
6:50 · I want people to come
and take this tour because they will
learn about a community when they come from
outside the community that they don’t know.
7:00 · Several times I said,
I didn’t know that.
7:04 · The red line delineating
white neighborhoods from black neighborhoods,
I found very interesting.
7:11 · It never occurred to me
that there was an exact dividing line between
neighborhoods.
7:16 · I didn’t know that.
7:18 · You know, one of the
things I’m really proud of, somewhat unexpected but
it is that we really are really making a difference as
it relates to bridging the gap between communities and
culture within the city.
7:34 · We are really making the
difference and I’m proud that as people learn
about our community then they have a tendency to
wanna learn more, number one and reach out and
develop new relationship.
7:46 · (upbeat jazz music) (upbeat jazz music) (upbeat jazz music)
Superblocks How Barcelona is taking city streets back from cars
Vox, 09 27, 2016
Video (5:30)
Description
Modern cities are designed for cars. But the city of Barcelona is testing out an urban design trick that can give cities back to pedestrians.
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Transcript
0:01 · If you imagine a typical American city street, and you take away the space that’s dedicated to cars, you aren’t left with very much.
0:09 · There are some narrow walkways on the side, and some bridges in between them, but not much else.
0:13 · Cars dominate cities.
0:16 · Spend some time walking around most cities and you’ll find yourself pushed to narrow sidewalks, waiting for crosswalk lights.
0:20 · You’ll find cyclists navigating really narrow strips of space.
0:23 · Americans are used to cars the way that fish are used to water.
0:28 · That’s so ubiquitous in the U.S. that I think for most people, it just never occurred to them that it could be otherwise.
0:35 · But what if there were a way to change that?
0:36 · To give space back to pedestrians and bicyclists, and to make cities more friendly to life outside of a car?
0:43 · It turns out Barcelona might have a solution.
0:48 · In 2014, the city was faced with serious air pollution problems.
0:51 · Barcelona and its 35 surrounding municipalities consistently failed to meet the EU’s air quality targets.
0:57 · Studies were showing that air pollution in the region causes 3,500 premature deaths every year.
1:03 · Traffic in the city also causes severe noise pollution.
1:05 · So the city developed an extensive Urban Mobility Plan with the hope of reducing traffic by 21 percent.
1:11 · The coolest part of the plan were these things: They call them “superilles”.
1:17 · Superilles?
1:18 · “Si, superilles.”
1:19 · That translates to “superblocks”.
1:21 · It’s this urban design concept intended to minimize the presence of cars in city centers.
1:26 · The word “superblock” has been used before to describe huge city blocks without any passageways for cars.
1:31 · But that’s not what’s happening here.
1:33 · So here’s how Barcelona’s plan works.
1:35 · You take nine square city blocks and close off the inside to through traffic.
1:39 · So buses, big freight trucks — or any vehicles that are trying to get from one part of town to the next — have to drive around the perimeter.
1:47 · Inside the superblock, the speed limit is kept to 10 kilometers per hour — that translates to just over 6 miles per hour — and curbside parking is replaced by underground parking.
1:55 · That means you wind up with street space for markets, outdoor games, and events.
2:00 · Within this nine square block perimeter you’re gonna have kind of a pleasant streetscape where people can walk around and mingle and do things without this kind of constant fear of cars around.
2:13 · The concept is going to be tested out in five neighborhoods, but the city has identified 120 possible intersections throughout the region where it could be implemented.
2:22 · So how do we know what the results of this kind of plan would look like?
2:24 · Well, northwest of Barcelona is a city called Vitoria-Gasteiz, which has implemented superblock designs since 2008.
2:30 · In the main superblock at the city center, pedestrian space increased from 45 percent of the total surface area to 74 percent.
2:37 · With so much less traffic, noise levels dropped from 66.5 dBA to 61 dBA.
2:43 · Most impressive of all, there was a 42% reduction in nitrogen oxide emissions and a 38% reduction in particle pollution in the area.
2:51 · On top of that, business is up.
2:52 · What you consistently see when people change their streetscapes to prioritize human beings over cars is you don’t see any decline in economic activity, you see the opposite.
3:03 · You get more people walking and cycling around more slowly, stopping more often patronizing businesses more, and that … center of social activity will tend to build on itself.
3:15 · So here’s the question: could something like this work in an American city?
3:20 · Barcelona has some unique advantages getting started on this plan, in that a lot of it was built before cars, and a lot of it was built on a simple grid.
3:32 · The district of Eixample — where the superblock plan is based — was designed in 1859 in this repetitive grid structure by this guy, Ildefons Cerdá.
3:41 · He basically invented the word for (and the study of) “urbanization” when he laid out this grid plan for Barcelona that evenly distributed resources like schools and hospitals.
3:51 · But superblock designers insist that cities don’t need a simple grid structure to implement this kind of plan.
3:56 · It can work anywhere.
3:58 · Now, cities in the US have have attempted some car-minimizing projects like this.
4:01 · The problem is, they’re usually done in wealthier areas with lots of existing businesses.
4:07 · Zoning policies often require separation of residential and commercial areas — but an ideal walkable area would be a mix of the two.
4:14 · On top of that, zoning minimums on parking availability encourage the presence of cars and parking lots, and minimums on street width make for wide, unwalkable streets.
4:24 · Because of that, walkable districts are basically isolated luxury items in the US.
4:29 · What makes the Barcelona plan different is that they aren’t setting aside one fancy neighborhood or town square to make pedestrian-friendly — instead, by proposing superblocks throughout the entire city, they’ve declared car-free spaces a right for everybody, no matter what part of town they’re in.
4:44 · Maybe — this might be overly optimistic — but I think it has sunk in in the U. S. that the model whereby every city resident comes with a car — and drives a car everywhere – is just inherently limited.
4:57 · It limits the growth of your city, it limits the health of your city and the growth of your city.
5:01 · So one way or another we have to find ways of having a lot of people live close to one another without all of them having cars.
5:11 · You know, being able to get around and work and play in live and have enjoyable lives without cars.
Trash containers making a difference in NYC’s war on rats
CBS New York, 08 06, 2026
Video (1:56)
Description
There have been fewer complaints about rats to 311, which appears to show trash container efforts are working. CBS News New York’s Dave Carlin reports.
For video licensing inquiries, contact: licensing@veritone.com
Transcript
0:04 · CALL IT A TRASHY TRIUMPH FOR CITY LEADERS IN THEIR WAR AGAINST RATS. AS DAVE CARLIN REPORTS, FEWER COMPLAINTS ABOUT RATS TO 311 APPEAR TO SHOW THOSE CONTAINER EFFORTS ARE WORKING.
0:17 · HIS EAST VILLAGE APARTMENT IS ON A STREET WHERE RATS SEEM TO HIDE DURING THE DAY. BUT AFTER THE SUN GOES DOWN, THEY’RE OUT FOR BUFFET TIME, SAYS JOHN HENNIGAN.
0:26 · AT NIGHT, THEY’RE VERY ACTIVE.
0:30 · ACTIVE ALSO DESCRIBES CITY SANITATION WORKERS DEPLOYING EMPIRE BINS. THE JOB IS DESCRIBED AS DONE IN PARTS OF HARLEM AND MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS, WHERE WE SEE THE NEW BINS FOR BUILDINGS, NEW RAT RESISTANT CORNER LITTER BASKETS AND APPROVED SECURE BINS FOR BUSINESSES. FELIX MOLINA SITS IN A PARK HE ONCE AVOIDED FOR BEING RAT INFESTED.
0:50 · NOW IT’S NO PROBLEM AT ALL.
0:51 · MY WIFE ACTUALLY HAD A A FLOWER BED IN OUR FRONT WINDOW THAT WE COULDN’T KEEP FLOWERS IN BECAUSE THE RATS WOULD JUST COME IN AND DIG IT ALL UP AND TEAR IT ALL TO PIECES.
1:02 · AND WHAT ABOUT NOW?
1:04 · NOT NOT A PROBLEM.
1:06 · GREGORY ANDERSON IS COMMISSIONER OF THE DEPARTMENT OF SANITATION, AND WE ASKED HIM WHAT’S GOING ON WITH RAT SIGHTINGS CITYWIDE.
1:14 · AND YOU HAVE SUCCESS.
1:14 · SO IT’S ROUGHLY 22% DECLINE IN RAT COMPLAINTS IN THE FIRST SEVEN MONTHS OF THIS CALENDAR YEAR COMPARED TO THE SAME TIME LAST YEAR. CONTAINERIZATION IS THE REASON.
1:24 · HELP WITH RATS ROLLING.
1:25 · OUT NEIGHBORHOOD BY NEIGHBORHOOD. AND IT’S GOING TO TAKE TIME. ACCORDING TO THE CITY, THE CITY MUST BUY HUNDREDS MORE OF THESE AUTOMATED SIDE LOADING COLLECTION TRUCKS TO GO WITH THE EMPIRE BINS.
1:35 · EVEN THOUGH WE’VE TAKEN TWO 3% OF PARKING SPACES, IT’S REALLY MADE A BIG IMPACT ON JUST HOW THE NEIGHBORHOOD LOOKS AND FEELS.
1:45 · THE FOCUS NOW PARTS OF BROOKLYN, INCLUDING DUMBO, THAN THE REST OF THE CITY.
1:48 · WE WILL BE CITYWIDE BY 2031.
1:50 · SO WE’RE ESTIMATING AROUND 60,000 BINS.
1:53 · LOOK FOR THE PARTS OF BROOKLYN TO BE COMPLETELY CONTAINE
Why did we build high-rise public housing projects
City Beautiful, 10 17, 2017
Video (6:48)
Description
Watch this video ad-free on Nebula: https://nebula.tv/videos/city-beautiful-why-did-we-build-high-rise-public-housing-projects
In the spring of 2007, the Chicago Housing Authority demolished the last of the 28 buildings in the Robert Taylor Homes housing project. Robert Taylor Homes is one of several high profile housing project demolitions, from St. Louis’s Pruitt-Igoe to fellow Chicago project Cabrini Green. The demolitions serve as an admission that high-rise public housing wasn’t a good idea. The housing that replaced them are all low rise projects better integrated within existing neighborhoods. So why did anyone back then think it was a good idea? Why did housing authorities build these high rise projects in the first place?
Resources on this topic:
Hunt, D. B. (2001). What Went Wrong with Public Housing in Chicago? A History of the Robert Taylor Homes. Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, 94(1), 96–123.
“Demolished: The End of Chicago’s Public Housing” by David Eads and Helga Salinas. https://apps.npr.org/lookatthis/posts/publichousing/
“When Public Housing Was Paradise” by Joy Connelly https://openingthewindow.com/2011/06/13/when-public-housing-was-paradise-2/
“Elizabeth Wood, 93, Innovator In Early Days of Public Housing” by Bruce Lambert http://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/17/us/elizabeth-wood-93-innovator-in-early-days-of-public-housing.html
“A Brief History of Public Housing” by Jennifer Amy Stoloff https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jennifer_Stoloff/publication/228789405_A_brief_history_of_public_housing/links/5643a68008ae9f9c13e05df6/A-brief-history-of-public-housing.pdf
Video sources: - Archive.org, Prelinger Archives
Photo sources: - Wikimedia Commons - Flickr user Samuel A. Love - Zahiri, N., Dezhdar, O., & Foroutan, M. (2016). Rethinking of Critical Regionalism in High-Rise Buildings. Buildings, 7(1), 4. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings7010004
Filmed in sunny Sacramento, California.
Transcript
The fall of public housing
0:00 · in the spring of 2007 the Chicago Housing Authority demolished the last of the 28 buildings in the Robert Taylor homes housing project Robert Taylor homes is one of several high profile housing project demolitions from st.
0:12 · Louis’s pruitt-igoe to the fellow Chicago project cabrini-green the demolitions serve as an admission that high-rise public housing wasn’t a good idea the housing that replaced them are all low-rise projects better integrated within existing neighborhoods so why did anyone back then think this was a good idea why didn’t housing authorities build these high-rise projects in the first place to understand why these high-rise
Roots of American housing
0:36 · projects were built we’re gonna have to go back in time all the way back to the Great Depression this is when the US government really began to get seriously involved with the construction of public housing prior to the Great Depression the private market was against the idea of government competing against them but the unprecedented economic climate subdued their protests now contrary to
0:55 · what you might think public housing in this era was not designed to house the poorest of the poor but instead help the middle class that was now struggling thanks to the depression activists and housing advocate Katherine Bowers shaped the nation’s vision for public housing in this era and literally wrote the 1937
1:10 · law that really kicked off public housing in the United States she envisioned large-scale projects on the edges of communities she favored modern architectural techniques but did not favor high-rise projects this general approach of housing workers in low-rise buildings lasted until the end of World War two housing not just public housing
Post-war urban renewal
1:28 · changed dramatically in the post-war years middle class white families moved to the suburbs enduros buying single-family homes they left behind black and immigrant families who could not leave the city either because they could not afford homes or because white neighborhoods would not tolerate black families moving in banks went loan to
1:45 · minority families and real estate agents wouldn’t show them homes in white communities white families were allowed to have a home an asset that increased in value and cemented their place in the middle class black families in the city became poorer and poorer and the federal government was about to make their lives even worse Harry Truman signed the Housing Act of 1949 which was intended to provide vast amounts of federal funding to cities to eradicate what he called slums where five million American
2:09 · families were living at the time and build new modern housing while upgrading the living conditions for millions of Americans may sound like a good idea in practice it was a disaster planners refer to this period of time as urban renewal but for many poor black urban residents it was known at the time as Negro removal as black neighborhoods
2:27 · were demolished but only some housing was rebuilt and much of that housing was actually intended for upper income white residents the full effects of urban renewal are far-reaching and will certainly be the subject of its own video Sunday but here’s this relevant to our discussion of housing projects urban and rural directed funding at the inner cities meaning the kind of projects Katherine Bauer advocated for nice developments in the suburbs just weren’t possible inner-city neighborhoods would be destroyed and replaced with completely new housing now nothing about
The rise of modernism
2:55 · that plan suggests that public housing authorities had to build high-rise buildings they could have replaced existing low-rise neighborhoods with low or medium rise buildings but the architectural style known as modernism was popular modern architects had already developed solutions for the slums and that solution was rows of bleak high-rise buildings lekar Busey a was the most famous of the modern architects who aimed to create a modern city his plan for Paris called for the demolition of the historic Central City in its place would be eighteen identical
3:23 · skyscrapers within super blocks of lawn and trees these towers in the park as the urban form came to be known were meant to serve as a cure for the ails of the city instead of enduring a dark dirty place with a confusing Street Network Parisians could enjoy plentiful light air and views in their Tower then take the elevator down to the park located right at the front door as the towers were identical and each floor was more or less identical they would be very efficient to build and be able to house many people that sounds pretty good right well when coreboot presented the idea back in 1925 Parisians hated it
3:56 · like really hated it it never came close to being built but 25 years later his ideas didn’t sound so crazy anymore two reasons for this first housing advocates wanted to replace old and dilapidated housing with something better and modern towers are pretty much the opposite of slum conditions at the time remember in the area Chicago where
Implementing high-rises
4:15 · Robert Taylor homes was built many did not have private baths and 1/3 of housing units were overcrowded some of these residents look forward to the new modern homes with private baths new appliances Envy in fact high-rise towers may have been a good place to live if local governments and housing authorities would have maintained and policed them well enough and second modern towers can be built relatively cheaply now in the case of the Robert Taylor homes Chicago Housing Authority officials strongly preferred low-rise designs like townhouses for
4:45 · their new housing Elizabeth would the progressive director of the CH a at the time had tried high-rise elevator buildings in the past she was influenced by the modern tower in a park model of lick her Busey a but after criticism from friend Katherine Bauer would admitted that she wasn’t comfortable putting people in high-rises they instead experimented with four-story buildings that were essentially two two-story townhouses stacked on top of each other unfortunately federal officials thought those plans were too costly and required Chicago to cut costs and build high-rise
Failure and new approaches
5:15 · buildings the marginal cost of adding floors to elevator buildings is relatively low so up those buildings went it’s worth noting that the federal government does not deserve all the blame one of the reasons Chicago’s plans were so expensive is because the Chicago City Council responding to the desires of their white constituents refused to
5:34 · allow any new public housing on the outskirts of Chicago where white families were moving in droves and land was cheaper the progressive Chicago Housing Authority had long advocated for sites in white neighborhoods but the racism of white residents halted those plans enforced the mostly black residents of Robert Taylor homes into cheaper and worse high-rise buildings and that brings us back to the wrecking ball the instincts of the Chicago Housing Authority were right the towers didn’t work when st.
5:59 · Louis tore down the pruitt-igoe project in 1972 an architectural historian called its destruction the day modern architecture died the federal government entirely rethought its approach to public housing at that point two new public housing projects were low-rise mixed income and integrated into communities the federal government also created a voucher program so families in need can rent homes on the private market I think it’s safe to say the air of the high-rise public housing project is over hey
6:28 · everyone thanks for watching just a personal side note Katherine Bower and her husband William Wurster co-founded the College of Environmental Design here at UC Berkeley it’s one of the first schools to put architecture Landscape Architecture and city finding under one roof it’s actually this roof right back here so thank you catherine bower for your humane vision for social housing and for my current educational institution
Films
The Urban Jungle
Human Footprint The Urban Jungle Season 1
Episode 5 of Human Footprint (Season 1) - Released: 2023-08-02 - Duration: 00:54:41
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Description
Shane explores three thriving urban species and envisions a wilder future for our cities.
Transcript
Shane, voice-over: Once upon a time, the Lenape called this place “Manahatta.”
A land of densely forested hills and slow-flowing streams… …it was, as Henry Hudson wrote in 1609, “as pleasant a land as one need tread upon.”
Today, all that remains of that place is the ground I’m standing on.
Rakim: If you was born in New York City Let me year you say, “You know that” Crowd: You know that!
In just a few hundred years, we cut down the forests, rerouted the streams, and leveled the hills.
In their place, we constructed a labyrinth of tunnels and pipes beneath a grid of asphalt streets lined with towers of concrete, glass, and steel.
In the blink of an eye, “Manahatta” became Manhattan.
Nas: Yeah, yeah Nas: Yo, black it’s time word?
Today, half of all humans– more than 4 billion people– live in cities.
But they’re not just a place to live.
Cities are a new ecosystem spreading across our planet.
One made by us, for us.
So how is this purpose-built human habitat treating us?
And what will it take to keep these urban jungles wild?
Nas: To the New York state of mind [Horns honking] Welcome to the Age of Humans… where one species can change everything and what we do reveals who we truly are.
This is “Human Footprint.”
The idyllic Manhattan of yesteryear was shaped by beavers, hydrological engineers whose vast earthworks transformed the entire ecosystem.
We humans alter the landscape, too.
We just do it bigger.
Humans have been called the ultimate ecosystem engineers.
And here in New York City, our talents are on full display.
Chorus: In Napoli where love is king When boy meets girl Simmering beneath this iconic skyline is a melting pot of more than 8 million people who speak 200 different languages and eat at over 1,400 pizzerias.
Man: As a New Yorker, I always lean towards pepperoni.
Shane: I can respect that.
Shane, voice-over: Bobby Corrigan is one of those 8 million New Yorkers.
He loves everything about this place: a good slice of pepperoni, the city lights, and, oh, yeah…rats.
In college, I had to save money, so I took a job as an exterminator.
They put me in the sewers right away… and I thought, “Oh, this is cool.”
Literally working your way from the bottom up.
Exactly.
Shane, voice-over: Bobby spends his free time writing poetry on the street, but by day, he’s a world-renowned urban rodentologist.
Are rats the scourge that people make them out to be?
I admire them.
I respect them.
However, they live in dirty areas.
Shane, voice-over: And, uh, that dirt got cooties.
It’s viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoans.
55 different diseases.
55?
Wow.
OK. And think of the plague, Shane.
You know, I mean, 25 million people go down with the black rat and their fleas.
Yeah.
Shane, voice-over: No place needs Bobby’s expertise more than New York, where it seems like rats are pretty much everywhere.
Here we are, sitting at a restaurant.
If that door over there is not pest proof into the pizza shop, across the kitchen counter, and urinates and defecates and leaves a film, and then someone touches the film the next morning, and then, you know, boom.
This pizza’s tasting a little less good now.
Ha!
Yeah.
Shane, voice-over: It was time to walk off that pizza on what Bobby calls a rat safari.
We’re gonna cross over here, Shane.
There’s a park here.
Here we are, almost at the end of June.
You know, their breeding season is in full swing.
Love is in the air.
Love is totally in the air, and families are growing.
Narrator: We know that rats are the most prolific of all mammals.
A single pair of rats would become 360 million in the short space of 3 years.
As the sidewalks begin to deteriorate, the rats will move below the sidewalks for their burrows.
You’re literally sometimes walking right over the tops of the heads of rats.
Sometimes, rats will go right up the tree if there’s a bird nest up there.
They’re predacious on those birds.
Is the reason why you’re wearing the hard hat because a rat might jump out of the tree onto you, and is that something I need to worry about?
Actually, that would be cool if they would jump onto me.
I’d like that a lot.
[Laughs] Shane, voice-over: The longer rats live in our cities, the better they get at it… and the harder we try to keep them out.
Here we have something that’s very common: the bait box.
The rats will go inside that box and find the poison bait.
And 8, 9, 10 days later, they die.
Shane, voice-over: But no matter how much poison we throw at the problem, we’re also throwing rats a lifeline.
Bobby: The rats are gonna be where the food is easy to get to.
All they have to do– 50 feet away, right there.
Shane, voice-over: New York City has 25,000 restaurants– not counting the pizzerias– and millions of home chefs.
3 nights a week, every one of them puts their trash not in a dumpster, not in a can with a lid, but right on the curb.
Bobby: Food in a big city of high-density humans?
Extremely reliable.
So this becomes, like, basically the rat buffet.
It does.
Shane, voice-over: They say if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.
And rats…well, they made it.
But how did they get here in the first place?
[Squeaking] Man: If we want to know the story of rats in New York City, we have to know what were they doing before they got here.
Shane, voice-over: This is Jason Munshi-South.
He’s a biologist who loves New York City almost as much as he loves rats.
[Ships’ horns blare] When the brown rat made it here, it sort of hit the jackpot.
Shane, voice-over: The brown rat, or Rattus norvegicus, probably originated in East Asia, where it was first drawn to human settlements by agriculture.
But as people around the world moved into dense cities full of trash, human waste, and safe hiding places, rat populations soared.
Without meaning to, we built a rat paradise.
Narrator: Rats don’t have to go to much trouble to find homes because we provide these for them, made to order, everything but the welcome mat.
It’s like, “Oh.
There’s this massive free food here now, and all I gotta do is hang around these people.”
Shane, voice-over: At the height of European imperialism, rats were already entrenched in cities and ports across the Old World.
So when European explorers sailed west into the unknown, rats did what they’ve always done and came along.
Where we are now is where the Dutch bought the island or stole the island.
I put my money on stole, but go ahead.
But the original… Shane, voice-over: By the early 1900s, it wasn’t just white human settlers who’d colonized all of North America.
It was also rats.
But not all rat habitat is created equal.
I’m gonna show you some different pressures in different parts of the city.
OK. We’re gonna go get that New York City tour.
Yeah, let’s do it.
All right, awesome.
[Engine revving] [Woman singing indistinctly] Jason: Yeah, as you’re driving from Battery Park, where the rats first came in, up to here, you know, this is one of the great rat neighborhoods of the world.
[Shane laughs] Shane, voice-over: But if you keep rolling north, the whole vibe changes.
And Jason’s got the data to prove it.
Jason: We got basically about 70,000 points where rats have been identified.
And this is the outcome of the map, where the green areas are really good rat neighborhoods, like where we are right now, right about there, near Tompkins Square.
But then see this red area here south of Central Park?
-Uh-huh.
-That’s Midtown, where there isn’t a lot of residential.
The companies pay extra money to have the streets cleaned up.
And it seems to create this almost, like, dead zone for rats.
Shane, voice-over: Jason can predict the size of rat populations in different neighborhoods by looking at data on humans.
Jason: Areas that are highly residential and mixed commercial that have a lot of restaurants, super predictive of rats, not surprisingly.
And older neighborhoods with older buildings, they really like that.
Shane, voice-over: The places where rats have food to eat and places to hide are the places they thrive.
On the flip side, take those things away and the rats disappear, too.
It seems so simple.
And yet, somehow… Bobby: Go to any city around the world and it’s plagued with rats.
We are not winning this war.
Shane, voice-over: Rodenticides, or rat poisons, have become a go-to weapon in the war on rats.
But rats are becoming resistant, pushing people to switch up the formula and apply even more rodenticides to keep rat populations in check.
And it’s not just poisons.
Our campaign against rats has grown into a $3 billion-a-year effort, involving legions of people around the world.
We’ve even conscripted other species into the war effort.
[Indistinct chatter] All right.
So this is our service center.
Shane: It’s like the gym, playhouse, sauna, exercise room, all together.
OK. All together, all together.
Shane, voice-over: When Scott Mullaney and his wife Angie aren’t cruising down a scenic highway… [Revving] …they’re training little dogs to do a big job.
[Engine revs, tires squeal] Instead of poison or traps, their company uses dogs to kill rats.
It’s actually nothing new.
As cities grew bigger and denser in the 19th century, rat populations exploded, and people created whole new dog breeds just to kill them.
We’ve worked them on top of 12-story buildings.
We’ve worked them in supermarkets.
We’ve worked them on airplanes.
We’ve worked them on trains, on trains, planes, and automobiles.
I mean, really, any environment you can think of.
Shane, voice-over: Over the years, Scott and Angie’s small team has killed more than 30,000 rats.
Scott: All right, you’re gonna leash up.
Here ya go, kid.
There ya go.
Dogs always give 100%.
They just love what they do.
We’re just gonna finish up so we can close up and go.
Last but not least.
[Engine starts, revs] [Distant siren] [Squeaking] OK, guys, so what we’re gonna do is, we’re just gonna take the leashes off the dogs.
I want to start right over here.
And you can see his kinetic energy.
He just– he’s on point right now.
He knows what the deal is.
Take the leash off and unleash them now.
Shane: It’s game time.
Scott: OK, we got something over here!
[Growling] Angie: Wooo!
Shane: Wow!
Scott: Good job.
This is bananas.
Shane, voice-over: It looks like chaos, but this is actually highly coordinated.
The dogs find the rats with their keen noses.
The handlers move dumpsters and pallets to expose them, and the dogs finish the job.
Yep.
Inside the bait box.
Shane, voice-over: Oh, and the hockey sticks?
Those are for cutting off escape routes.
Angie: Wooo!
Ohh!
Shane, voice-over: The dogs look like they’re having a blast.
The rats?
Well, not so much.
Scott: It’s still alive.
Hold on for a second.
Shane: Oh, my God!
Angie: Hey!
Scott: Yep.
Yeah, just make sure that nothing takes off the other way.
Angie: Good job, guys!
Scott: OK, we’ve got something over here, I think.
[Soft crunching] There are things that I have seen that I cannot unsee, and I will be having a whole different kind of nightmare from now on.
[Both laugh] What do you think our situation with rats says about us?
I think it’s pathetic.
As long as human beings continue with their sanita– poor sanitation habits, OK, and their lack of concern, we will never get rid of rats.
They’re here to stay.
Shane, voice-over: When people come together to live in cities, we create the perfect environment for rats.
They’ve been living with us for centuries.
When European settlers brought them to the New World, rats just had to keep doing what they were best at to thrive here, too.
But further south, in the Caribbean, another species is evolving before our very eyes to fit into an ever-more-urbanized world.
[Horn blares] Juan Ponce De Leon founded the settlement that became San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1508, making it one of the oldest colonial cities in the Americas.
500 years later, that tiny colony has grown into the third-largest city in the Caribbean Islands.
But amazingly, you can still see native wildlife here.
If you walk through the city, you’ll just see them on everything.
Shane, voice-over: Kristin Winchell is an expert in urban evolution.
She studies lizards called anoles, which live all over the American tropics.
For Kristin, anoles aren’t just a scientific inspiration.
They’re also her artistic muse.
[Foamer sputtering] So for you, I guess first of all, what is the greatest animal, and why is it anoles?
Ha ha!
I don’t know.
They’re just fantastic, little critters.
They’re so expressive and so charismatic.
And, I mean, they’re also great for scientific study.
Shane, voice-over: If you can’t tell, I’m a big anole fan, too.
I used to catch them as a kid in South Carolina and I’ve been studying them since grad school.
In fact, Kristin and I actually work together on anole research here in Puerto Rico.
So of all the places to study these lizards, why cities?
But I feel like most people, they’re like, “OK, I want to study them, like, in forests,” and things like that.
You decided to go study them in the city.
It was because I was looking for a species that might be adapting to urban environments.
I came across anoles and started reading about their rich evolutionary history and rapid change after you modify the environment.
Shane, voice-over: Anoles might seem like unlikely science heroes, but biologists have been studying them for decades and published literally thousands of papers on them.
There are more than 400 species of anoles that live throughout the Caribbean, Central and South America, and the Southeastern U.S. And I just had this moment where I was like, “If this is happening, it’s in these guys.”
Shane, voice-over: Once you know what you’re looking for, anole adaptations can be easy to spot.
You see, species that live in different habitats have different traits: big toe pads that help them stick to leaves in the treetops; long legs that allow them to run fast on the ground; short legs that help them climb without falling on the tiniest twigs; and so on.
Kristin’s question was, which of these traits, if any, would help anoles survive in the city?
Kristin: All right, let’s find some lizards.
Shane, voice-over: Kristin and I study the Puerto Rican crested anole.
Step one is to find out whether urban and forest anoles are different from one another.
Kristin: Say it, and the lizard gods will deliver.
Yeah, there’s a female right there.
Shane, voice-over: So we hit the streets to catch some lizards.
Kristin: Oh, she’s squirrely.
Shane: You’re too slow, K. Stop embarrassing yourself on TV.
I had one and then I let–yeah, OK.
Thanks, Shane.
Ha ha ha ha!
That’s real nice.
Invite me on your show and then make fun of me.
Shane: Ha ha ha ha!
Shane, voice-over: Catching anoles is a delicate scientific process involving a fishing pole and some string.
Luckily, I came prepared… maybe a little too prepared.
Who comes out catching anoles in flip-flops?
This is how you catch urban anoles!
You don’t need those big boots.
[Laughs] You go out in your hiking boots and your field clothes, well, you’re gonna get a lot of looks.
You dress casual like you’re going out on– for a little walk, even bring a little boom box with you.
That helps a lot, ’cause no one walks around doing sketchy stuff listening to reggaeton.
Kristin: Got him first.
Shane: Ha ha ha!
Hey, bud.
We measure with a digital X-ray the–all the bones in the body.
And you can see that they have these enlarged toe pads on the fore and the hind feet.
And so if you were to zoom way in on those, you’d be able to see these tiny scales, and those let the lizards cling to the smooth surfaces.
Shane: So for the Puerto Rican crested anole, what did you find?
One of my initial findings was that in the city, the lizards had longer limbs relative to their body length, larger toe pads with more of these specialized scales on the toe pads.
OK. Shane, voice-over: These are exactly the kinds of adaptations you might expect to see in cities, based on what we already know about anoles living elsewhere.
Kristin: They’re clinging to things like glass and metal and even painted concrete, which is a lot smoother than anything you find in the forest.
And so there’s kind of this combined selective pressure on toe pads, making them able to cling better, and limb length, making them able to navigate the structural environment better.
OK. Shane, voice-over: The urban lizards were different, but the real test was whether they could actually outperform their forest-dwelling counterparts when facing a uniquely urban challenge.
So I set up a lizard racetrack, and I fitted the racetrack with different surfaces.
One was tree bark, one was metal, like fence post metal, and then one was painted concrete.
And then I took high-speed video of these lizards racing up the racetracks.
And what I found was– or what I expected, rather, I should start there, is that the urban lizards would be able to run faster on the concrete and the metal and the urban substrates.
Those are the environments that they were living in.
Yeah, exactly.
And so they’d be better at doing that than the forest lizards.
What I found, though, was that the urban lizard’s just faster overall.
On anything.
On anything.
Even, like, bark and stuff that’s in forests.
Yeah, even bark, no matter what angle, no matter what structure we put on the track surface, they were faster.
They’re just hot rods.
Mm-hmm.
Shane, voice-over: In grad school, I studied how anoles in Texas– where the Polar Vortex causes rare but intense cold snaps– were adapting to the cold.
When I found out about Kristin’s work in cities, I realized her urban anoles could be facing a different kind of extreme.
Kristin: When I came down and tried out this big idea of “are anoles adapting to cities,” one of the things that I measured was body temperature and air temperature.
Shane, voice-over: Cities create what scientists call “urban heat islands,” areas with much hotter temperatures than the surrounding landscape.
So a few years ago, Kristin and I decided to find out how urban and forest anoles responded to extreme heat.
Sure enough, urban anoles could take the heat better than forest anoles, and we even found a few of the genes that affect heat tolerance.
These adaptations aren’t unique to any one city.
We found the same differences between urban and forest anoles again and again, all over Puerto Rico.
We can think of cities as the big Petri dishes that are replicated on a much larger scale.
Shane, voice-over: No two cities are exactly alike.
But for anoles, all cities have some things in common.
To survive on the streets, crested anoles evolved longer legs, bigger toe pads, and better heat tolerance than their forest relatives.
And it happened fast.
Some of our urban study locations have only been cities for 30 years.
That’s evolution in overdrive, even in lizard time.
So is this a feel-good story of animal adaptability?
Kristin: I think it’s a big mistake for us to think that all animals are gonna be able to adapt their way out of this.
We still are going to lose a lot of species as urbanization progresses.
OK. Shane, voice-over: Only two of Puerto Rico’s 10 anole species are found in cities, and just one, the crested anole, is really thriving.
So yes, some species can adapt, but the ones that don’t get squeezed out.
Kristin: I mean, that’s another reason why we should be studying the plants and animals that are doing well here, so that we can maybe engineer cities to be a little more favorable to wildlife.
Shane: So typically, when we think of ecosystems, right, we think of things like forests or deserts.
Should we consider cities as ecosystems as well?
Yes, absolutely.
And we should consider them as distinct ecosystems, just like we do all those others.
Shane, voice-over: Some folks aren’t as comfortable as Kristin with calling cities ecosystems.
But the more I learn about urban biology, the harder I find it to think of them as anything else.
Still, San Juan is no Serengeti.
For one thing, I don’t see any big predators in the streets.
But in major U.S. cities, that’s beginning to change.
With the second-highest population density in the U.S., right after New York City, San Francisco doesn’t seem like the ideal place for a large, wild predator.
But coyotes are full of surprises.
Just ask Officer Stephanie Pone.
One of the many things that I really love about this job is that every single day is a surprise.
Yeah.
It’s different.
There’s never a shortage of ways for animals to get themselves into conundrums.
OK. Nate Rose: Don’t you ever come up out the cracks And try to tell me how to get it Shane, voice-over: Stephanie’s sopapillas are the stuff of legend.
Rose: Spending any time just talking with me Shane: When she isn’t practicing her culinary craft, Stephanie patrols the streets for San Francisco’s Department of Animal Care and Control.
Rose: Tell me how to get it poppin’ really Stephanie: The most succinct way to describe it is that we are responsible for public safety as it relates to animals.
One time, I had a coyote call at Fisherman’s Wharf where the coyote was just chilling but being kind of a weirdo.
And I tried to approach to see if maybe there was something wrong, and the coyote got so scared that it jumped into the bay.
Oh, wow.
And then I had to do a boat rescue to rescue the coyote out of the bay.
And I was like, if I had just stayed out of it, the coyote would’ve been fine.
So it wasn’t like, “You’ll never get me, copper!”
And then he jumps into the– I mean, maybe.
I wouldn’t blame him.
[Laughter] Shane, voice-over: Stephanie’s department gets quite a few calls about coyotes.
I get it.
There’s something about seeing a predator walking down your sidewalk that would be very alarming.
Shane, voice-over: Coyote sightings are becoming increasingly common here, and not just in the city’s green spaces.
We see a lot of coyotes here.
We get a lot of reports in this area, but also in the neighborhood, which is part of the issue.
Shane, voice-over: It’s rare that a coyote actually harms a human or pet.
Still, public opinion of these predators is… let’s just say mixed.
Just like our beautiful city, the response is very diverse.
We get people that on one end, love animals, but they treat them like dogs, and that is terrible for the coyotes and it’s terrible for public safety.
And then we have the complete other end, where people think that they have no business being here and that they should all be killed.
Most people are somewhere in the middle.
Speaking as myself and not as a representative of the city, I’m quite fond of them.
I think it’s magical.
I never get tired of seeing them.
I also am a dog owner, and I have a teeny-tiny little dog who would be the perfect size for a coyote snack.
Shane, voice-over: For many people, it’s fear for their pets that tips the scales against coyotes.
It was 2015 when we started having coyote attacks.
Shane, voice-over: Karin Hu has lived in this neighborhood for 30 years.
I understand why people want coyotes in the city.
We love to look at wildlife, you know?
Maybe teaching people to appreciate the other types of, you know, things we have, like…
This last winter, I saw over 25 species of mushrooms.
I mean, that’s fascinating!
Shane, voice-over: When Karin isn’t teaching a course on psychoactive drugs at the local university, she’s out walking her dog.
And where coyotes are concerned, Karin’s vote is a “no.”
At least, not in her neighborhood.
Is your main concern the safety of your dog, or do you have other concerns as well?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, it’s– It’s all–OK.
If I didn’t have little dogs, I wouldn’t– this wouldn’t be my issue at all.
How do you go about deciding what belongs and what doesn’t belong?
It’s all values.
So my pets, the small dogs in this neighborhood, the cats in the neighborhood, are very high value.
And, yeah, there is value to having, you know, wildlife like coyotes around, but that’s a lower value, as soon as you start being a risk to our family members.
Some people feel uncomfortable and they try to, like, make a rationalization.
I just say, “No, that’s how we are.”
It just is what it is.
Yeah, we’re speciesists, you know?
We value some species more than others.
OK. Shane, voice-over: Historically, we’ve never valued coyotes much in the U.S. To this day, we kill almost half a million of them every year.
But it doesn’t seem to faze them.
Today, coyotes inhabit more of the continent than ever, including thriving populations in major cities.
So researchers want to know, what’s the secret sauce?
Why are coyotes so good at living in the habitat we’ve built for ourselves?
Woman: A big part of what I’ve done is walk around the city looking for coyote scat.
Scat, which is poop, just to be clear.
It is poop, yep.
OK. When I had you to myself Shane, voice-over: This is Tali Caspi.
If she isn’t playing one of my all-time favorite tunes on her upright bass, you might find her scouring the sidewalks for scientific treasure.
You ever have somebody walk by and just look at you like you’re an absolute maniac?
All the time, but actually, San Francisco is full of weird people.
So a lot of people just walk by and they’re just like– Makes sense.
Normal day, yeah.
Sometimes, you just gotta pick up some poop.
Totally, but when I do have those conversations with people, what’s really cool about it is everyone has something to share or contribute.
Yeah.
It’s pretty hard to be a resident of this city and not have had some kind of interaction or story with an urban coyote.
It’s so foggy.
Ha ha!
At this point, I’ve walked around 950 kilometers of urban trails in the city over the span of two years– Your Fitbit must be lighting up!
Tali: Oh yeah, it is.
Basically walking around, trying to find signs of coyote activity to help me find scat that I then pick up and bring into the lab.
And speaking of the devil… Shane: It’s coyote poop!
Tali: Fresh coyote scat right here.
Shane, voice-over: In the last two years, Tali has collected more than 1,300 scat samples.
In the scat are clues about the urban lifestyle of coyotes.
Everything they eat leaves trace evidence behind in the form of DNA.
It’s the DNA of the coyote, but then everything that the coyote ate as well.
Can you tell from the work that you’ve done, you know, like, how much cat DNA or, you know, Chihuahua DNA is in a coyote poop?
Yeah, so unfortunately, I can’t tell how much Chihuahua DNA is in a coyote poop, because coyotes and dogs are actually pretty similar, but I’ve definitely found some cat reads in the scat, but it is by no means the majority or most significant component of their diet.
OK.
The parts of their diet that have come out thus far as sort of the biggest contributors are pocket gophers, pigeons are pretty common, and then these livestock breeds.
so cow, chicken and turkey, pig.
And these are obviously not animals that the coyotes are hunting in San Francisco.
God, I hope not.
Yeah, these are either foods that people are giving to the coyotes or are sort of foraged from garbage bins, from trash, or from cat food and dog food that people leave out.
OK. Shane, voice-over: So coyotes are doing some hunting in the city, but like the rats I met in New York, they’re also making use of what we leave behind.
It may just be that city life is easy living if you’re a coyote.
From somebody who has been studying these animals, what is your take on coyotes in the city?
They’re here.
They’ve been here.
And they’re going to stay here.
Let’s say, tomorrow I could snap my fingers and take all of the coyotes out of the city.
They’d come back, because in all the surrounding areas, there are so many coyotes ready to just colonize an open territory.
The best thing we can do is think about coexistence with coyotes and how can we coexist with them as neighbors in our cities.
Shane, voice-over: That can be hard, because we build cities for ourselves.
These places are supposed to be for us, but coyotes shatter that illusion.
Maybe that’s why so many people have strong feelings about them, both negative and positive.
[Howling] Man: I love them to death.
I think they’re– they–yeah.
They are such a fantastic species.
Yeah.
They give us so many lessons.
Mm.
Shane, voice-over: Meet my friend Chris Schell.
This man can grill up a mouth-watering rack of ribs.
He’s also a professor at UC Berkeley, where he studies how coyotes and other animals live in cities.
How do you go about studying coyotes in this kind of environment?
We use techniques that we use in traditional ecological studies.
Everything from camera traps to fecal transects to GPS collars on the animals.
Shane, voice-over: This camera trap is one of dozens that Chris and his team have placed to observe wildlife in the city.
Chris: So we want to try and put the camera in places where we know wildlife are likely going to be, even though we know people are in the general area.
So let’s go ahead and just go out and view out and see, OK, did we get anything that is for us noteworthy?
Now, we’re super biased.
We’re always thinking about the carnivores.
OK. Chris: And here I already see we got a gray fox.
Shane: Oh, yeah!
Chris: If we continue to scroll, more skunks, another person, more deer.
Man, it’s a higher density of animals than I would expect.
Like, this is just over the course of a few days.
Right.
Wow.
Shane, voice-over: Here in the lush Berkeley Hills, carnivores like foxes and coyotes flourish.
But cities aren’t monoliths.
Just down the hill in Emeryville, the habitat– if you want to call it that– doesn’t look as inviting.
Chris: There’s a lot of concrete here.
Mm-hmm.
As we’re driving through, I’m seeing more built structures.
I’m seeing less vegetation.
I’m seeing less ways for animals to get from point A to point B. Shane, voice-over: But Chris’ team set up a camera anyway…just to see.
Shane: Are you getting coyotes in as dense a number here as you would elsewhere in the city?
So no, we’re not.
And the only species we’ve really caught on that camera have been ground squirrels or raccoons.
OK. OK. And that’s it.
So a good chunk of the wildlife that we saw up at some of the other sites up in the hills, gray foxes, for instance, they aren’t here.
Shane, voice-over: Animals know good habitat when they see it, and wealthy neighborhoods can be brimming with the things wild species need– trees, water, safe places to hide.
Chris: So property values can positively correlate with the likelihood that you’re going to see a coyote or other wildlife species in an area.
And that’s called the luxury effect.
Oh, OK.
So urban species trying to live bougie, too, is what you’re saying?
Oh, yeah!
Right, they’re trying to make it work, like, “Oh, but this neighborhood over here, though?”
So many of the historical processes that have happened in cities… think residential segregation via redlining, or urban renewal programs that then led to displacement, gentrification also, leading to socioeconomic disparities in and across this urban landscape, right?
This entire landscape is constructed, and when we understand how its construction leads to amenities and disamenities therein, we start to understand that we aren’t the only organisms that are being affected by this.
Mm.
That history, right, you’re talking about things, the discrimination, racism, redlining.
Basically, what you’re saying is, more than social, more than economic, they’re tangibly biological.
Right.
Simply put, the past is present.
Shane, voice-over: The noise, the air pollution, the heat, the toxic byproducts of industry, the impacts of urban living hit harder in some places than others.
Chris: Even cities as close as San Francisco and the East Bay or Berkeley and Oakland are so separate from each other.
And the animals, they give us these lessons through how they move, through what they do, through what they eat.
Some organisms, like raccoons, for instance, if they eat too many human foods, develop diabetes.
They develop diabetes!
Oh, wow.
Right?
Just ’cause they’re there doesn’t mean that they’re doing well.
Yeah.
So does the way that animals interact with their environment in a city teach us anything new about how we exist in a city as a species?
They serve as the beacons.
The “bioindicators” is the term we often use.
They are the conduits to allow us to better understand that many of these disparities that hit communities of color, low-income communities really hard are also the same things that are destroying the natural world.
The policies that separate us from us are also those same policies that separate us from the natural world.
Shane, voice-over: Many animals living in our cities don’t know anything else.
So they learn to survive against all odds, even if they can’t really thrive.
It kind of makes me wonder: What if we humans are the same way?
We are impoverishing ourselves, and that’s just the hard truth, that we are hurting ourselves and we don’t know it.
Shane, voice-over: This is Peter Kahn.
When he isn’t serenading the wild on his homemade flute, he studies our species’ shifting relationship with nature.
Peter’s interest in cities dates back to the nineties, when he asked kids in Houston, Texas a couple of simple questions.
We just asked this kind of preliminary question, “Do you know what air pollution is?”
And they said, “Yeah, yeah,” all of them.
Then we asked the second question, which was, “Does Houston have air pollution?”
And the significant number of children went from, “Yes.
Yeah, I understand what air pollution is,” to “No, Houston doesn’t have air pollution,” which completely blew us away.
Because, at the time, Houston was the most polluted city in the United States.
How could these kids growing up in the most polluted city in the United States, how could they not know about that their city was polluted?
And that’s the start, for me, some 30 years ago, in thinking about this issue, about environmental generational amnesia.
That the children are coming of age, and they’re constructing a baseline of what normal is.
Shane, voice-over: That mouthful of a phrase, “environmental generational amnesia,” refers to the way that each generation grows up thinking that their experience of the world is normal.
So in our urbanizing world, the less nature we experience, the less we think we need.
With each generation, nature becomes smaller.
Wilderness becomes a city park and then a row of trees in a median and then…nothing at all.
And thanks to this so-called amnesia, most of us never notice.
Peter: I think we’re building urban prisons.
I think we’re imprisoning ourselves.
Shane, voice-over: Peter’s concerns are rooted in real data.
Depression and anxiety are more common in cities than outside them.
And some studies show that exposure to nature can help, not just with mental health, but physical health, too.
It reduces stress, reduces obesity, helps eyesight, reduces depression.
I mean, the list is on and on.
Can modern cities be transformed into something that allows us to sort of reconnect in that ancestral way with our environment while still having all of the functional components of a city?
Yeah.
There’s some marvelous parts of cities, and I think we both appreciate them so much.
And it’s the coming together of different groups and different energies, different knowledge.
The creativity is so amazing in cities.
We can make them better and we should make them better.
Yeah.
Um… but here’s the thing.
They can get a lot worse, and unless we push back, try to make them better, they will get worse.
Shane, voice-over: We haven’t reached “peak city” yet, not even close.
By 2050, 2/3 of us will live in urban areas.
So as cities continue to grow, how can we create a less dystopian urban future?
Halfway around the world, architects and urban planners are pushing back and reimagining what city living can be, for us and the rest of nature.
In every city I’ve ever lived in, green spaces felt like an escape.
They were in the city but not of the city.
Singapore is different.
Here, nature is never more than a few blocks away.
Everywhere you look, buildings are exploding with life.
[Rooster crows] It feels like a miracle.
Woman: Is it your first time in Singapore?
Shane: It is.
Man, this place, it’s– I’ve never seen anything like it.
It’s incredible.
Shane, voice-over: If you ask Pearl Chee, she’ll tell you it’s no miracle.
It’s all part of the plan.
Pearl: We are challenging ourselves as architects whether we can design better.
We are creating a lot of concrete buildings, it’s like a concrete jungle, but we really want to bring the jungle in.
Shane, voice-over: Pearl is the architect who designed the Kampung Admiralty, the building we’re standing in now.
Pearl: Our design concept, it’s a very unique combination.
We actually have elderly housing, public housing, combined with healthcare, which is a medical center, commercial and some social programs, and a food court, yeah.
Shane: Oh, wow.
So that’s why it’s not gated.
It’s very open.
Anybody can actually come in and use the facilities here.
Shane, voice-over: Singapore is the third most densely populated city in the world.
The entire country is an island with only 281 square miles of land, but 5.5 million people live here.
In a city this dense, you wouldn’t expect much room for nature.
But it’s like they say: where there’s a will, there’s a way.
And by will, I mean law.
Legislation enables it to happen.
The building took the land.
So we need to do replacement.
The legislation actually requires a building to give back 100% landscape.
Oh!
100% of the site footprint has to be replaced into the building.
Every square inch of, like, green space that you take up, you have to put back in…
Put back in, yeah.
into the building somehow.
Into the building.
Shane, voice-over: A few years after completing the building, Pearl’s firm surveyed the animal life in Kampung Admiralty’s gardens.
50 different species had moved in.
Pearl: The species in this building is higher than the species on the ground park.
Oh, really?
Yeah, which is right nearby.
So…
Wait, so there’s more species within this construction than in, like, a natural space of the same amount of greenery?
Yeah, correct.
That’s incredible.
Thinking about an entire city built like this, basically, you’re talking about reforestation and urbanization as sort of one and the same.
Correct.
[Crows] Shane, voice-over: This development is a microcosm of what’s happening all over Singapore.
It’s not just one building or designer or architecture firm.
The whole city is teeming with life.
Narrator: It’s hard to believe that not so long ago, war surged around it and even in it.
Singapore, cosmopolis of the East.
Malays, Chinese, Indians, and British have taken time by the forelock, and the shops and market stalls dazzle the eye and make our mouths water.
As you sort of, like, move around the city now, you know, do you, you know, like, do you go to places and you’re like, “Oh, this is my baby”?
Yeah, yeah.
All the time.
[Laughter] Shane, voice-over: Professor Cheong Koon Hean is a music lover and life-long Singaporean.
She’s also a legendary urban planner.
A lot of folks credit her with shaping Singapore’s singular urban landscape.
BAER: Raise a toast to the GOAT, yeah Cheong: This is one of my favorite neighborhood centers in a public housing estate.
Because in Singapore, 80% of the people live in public housing in estates like this.
Oh, wow.
In highly affordable housing.
Shane, voice-over: Kampung Admiralty, the building Pearl Chee designed, is public housing, too.
And these places are cush.
The apartments are modern and clean, the amenities are incredible, and most developments are a 10-minute or less walk from public transportation.
And, of course, everything is draped in greenery, from the street level to the tops of the skyscrapers.
Where I come from, when we say “public housing,” basically, like, we call it “the projects.”
And I was actually raised a lot in public housing.
And that public housing and this public housing are not the same thing.
Well, you can’t believe it when you come to Singapore today, but, say, about 60, 70 years ago, actually, Singapore was a nation of slums and squatters.
It was also polluted and lots of traffic congestion.
Shane, voice-over: When Singapore gained its sovereignty from Britain in 1959, it was a city of 1.5 million people and massive, unplanned sprawl.
Tens of thousands of people had no place to live.
So the newly elected government created the HDB, or Housing and Development Board.
Cheong: And within 5 years, the HDB, they already built 51,000 units of flats.
It started from very basic housing, but now, of course, the quality is a lot better, as you can see around you.
Yeah.
Shane, voice-over: And public housing is just the beginning.
Singapore is a very small city-state.
It’s actually only half the size of metropolitan London.
Oh, wow.
But we are a country.
We’re not just a city.
So everything you need about a country, whether it’s for water, power generation, ports, airports, plus housing, shops, offices, industry, all has to be built within this tiny island city-state.
And so biodiversity and ecological balance became really quite an important concept.
Now, as we developed the land, of course we start to lose space for planting.
So what did we do?
We decided to move the greenery upwards into the sky.
And so, what you did is you just created new space.
And suddenly, you bring back all the biodiversity.
Back in the States, urban areas and wildlife are sort of like oil and water.
They don’t mix very well.
But what you’ve done here is something very, very different.
Over the years, we moved from being a garden city to a city in the garden because we started to plant so extensively.
And in the last decade or so, we moved from a city in a garden to city in nature.
In a place where you have limited space and you have this growing population that there are two very sort of competing needs.
Shane, absolutely, there’s always competing needs, right?
So it’s really this very important balancing act of allocating the right amount of land for different uses to create this type of an environment.
Shane, voice-over: And who orchestrates this balancing act?
It’s the Singaporean government, with their comprehensive “Master Plan” for managing the city-state’s ongoing growth.
By centralizing the control of urban development, Singapore paves the way– you see what I did there– for projects that fuse function and form.
Cheong: If you look behind us, the Punggol Waterway is actually a man-made river.
We dammed up two rivers to become freshwater reservoirs.
Now, the engineers wanted to connect the two reservoirs with a pipe– very functional.
But then the architects and the planners say, “Why do a pipe?
Why don’t we make a river?”
And so, this river connected the two reservoirs to balance and optimize the storage of water, but at the same time, it became a leisure facility.
So Punggol has a nickname.
It’s the Venice of Singapore.
Oh, that’s amazing.
Because we brought in water, right?
It has its aesthetics, but everything also serves… Function, yes, a function.
a very specific function.
Even the Punggol Waterway, there’s a family of otters that have come back.
Oh, that’s incredible.
They live on the Punggol Waterway.
Shane, voice-over: Singapore challenges a lot of what I thought I knew about cities.
No one’s saying that we should all be like Singapore, or even that we could be.
This place is unique.
90% of Singapore’s land is publicly owned.
The government determines what gets built and where.
And with everyone sharing the same tiny island, by definition, they’re all in this together.
Most places don’t have all that.
But I’m not sure we need it to re-imagine what cities can be.
I think the thing that stands out to me about Singapore is the intentionality.
I’m not sure if this specific model can be applied anywhere or everywhere, but I think they’re doing things that I think other cities can learn from.
We have to get our act together to make cities effective.
Creativity, innovation, and that will to survive and to want to do well are very, very strong drivers.
That’s human beings, right?
That’s what we are.
Shane, voice-over: Cities might just be humankind’s most remarkable invention.
Because we thought we were building ourselves a place to live, but we were really creating a new ecosystem, a place where nature has to adapt to live alongside us and some of our urban neighbors are more welcome than others.
City living brings challenges– for us and all the species that share our urban spaces.
But we shouldn’t forget that cities can also help us flourish.
In Oakland, Chris said something that stuck with me.
We are a communal species.
So for folks to think, “Well, if you just get outside the city, you’ll be OK,” nah, nah, nah, it doesn’t work like that.
We need to be able to have connection.
Shane, voice-over: That’s why cities aren’t going anywhere and why we need to make them better.
With a little creativity and vision, they can deliver that connection– to each other and maybe to the rest of our incredible planet, too.
Human Footprint is available with PBS Passport and on Amazon Prime Video.
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