2024-09-13_Friday_QA
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00:00:26.820 | - We go now to a written question
00:00:28.300 | from a listener who writes in and says, Joshua,
00:00:30.100 | I can't call in today, but would love
00:00:31.780 | if you would address my question this week.
00:00:34.060 | I have three young kids and we're going to be moving
00:00:35.820 | into a rental in a new city for the next year.
00:00:38.860 | We're evaluating renting a single family house
00:00:41.340 | with a yard that they can be set out to play by themselves
00:00:44.380 | versus a luxury apartment with no yard, but a pool.
00:00:47.740 | We value lots of outdoor time,
00:00:49.700 | but the appeal of no maintenance for a year is strong.
00:00:53.060 | Can you talk about the various home types
00:00:54.900 | and setups you've had as you've moved around the world
00:00:56.940 | over the past few years, what the pros and cons are
00:00:59.660 | and what you'd recommend based on your experiences?
00:01:02.860 | And absolutely I will.
00:01:05.340 | First, I want to point out that a yard is not a yard
00:01:08.020 | is not a yard.
00:01:09.020 | And so the first thing to clarify will be
00:01:12.380 | if we're comparing two properties,
00:01:14.580 | one that has a yard and one that doesn't have a yard,
00:01:17.940 | let's start by understanding what is the definition of yard.
00:01:21.220 | In general, children are not that attracted
00:01:23.920 | to a small postage stamp patch of grass.
00:01:27.280 | That does not have a lot of attraction.
00:01:30.000 | On the whole, life as a parent is usually
00:01:33.080 | a little bit easier as a parent in the suburbs
00:01:36.500 | than it is in the middle of the city
00:01:38.140 | because of having an outdoor space.
00:01:40.720 | It's nice, however, primarily for the verbal separation
00:01:44.680 | where you can send the children outside
00:01:46.140 | where they can be loud, they can yell, they can scream,
00:01:48.240 | they can get their wiggles out
00:01:49.620 | and you don't have to be the one listening to all of that.
00:01:52.960 | They can just do it outside
00:01:54.080 | where they're not bothering anybody.
00:01:55.920 | But if there's just an empty piece of grass,
00:01:58.480 | that in and of itself is not very attractive for children.
00:02:01.300 | I myself think of it like fish.
00:02:02.920 | Now I'm not a fisherman,
00:02:04.060 | but what I understand about fishing
00:02:06.160 | is that if you have a big empty lake,
00:02:08.900 | you don't just go out in the middle of the lake
00:02:10.480 | and plop a line down and expect to catch anything.
00:02:14.400 | The place where the fish hang out
00:02:15.860 | is wherever there's texture,
00:02:17.760 | or as the permaculture designers would say,
00:02:19.360 | wherever there's edge,
00:02:20.680 | wherever there's some kind of change.
00:02:22.720 | And so in order to have a yard
00:02:24.020 | that's attractive to children,
00:02:25.780 | there needs to be a significant amount
00:02:27.600 | of texture available in it.
00:02:30.080 | What is an example of what I'm talking about?
00:02:33.180 | Well, ordinarily you would have something
00:02:34.840 | like a play structure.
00:02:36.300 | And this is why if you go across suburbia,
00:02:38.200 | you'll see many yards and houses
00:02:40.040 | that have installed some kind of basic play structure
00:02:42.620 | with a couple of swings, a monkey bars,
00:02:44.480 | a place to climb, things like that.
00:02:46.480 | And these structures are a good start,
00:02:48.760 | but they probably last for about 20 minutes or so
00:02:52.560 | in terms of overall engagement,
00:02:55.400 | because they're hard to use imaginatively.
00:02:58.120 | They're usually kind of bare.
00:02:59.600 | They're just some basic stuff
00:03:01.960 | and children don't wanna swing for an hour straight.
00:03:05.560 | So it's a good start to be able to put
00:03:07.600 | some kind of play structure in, but not sufficient.
00:03:10.400 | Now, if you have a yard that is a jungle,
00:03:13.040 | an absolute jungle,
00:03:14.680 | now you've got some probabilities
00:03:17.860 | for it really being engaging to children for a long time.
00:03:21.400 | Ideally, we would have trees,
00:03:23.200 | we would have bushes you can hide under,
00:03:24.980 | you can crawl under,
00:03:25.820 | we'd have places you can dig a hole,
00:03:27.600 | you'd have all kinds of vines,
00:03:29.920 | and again, places you can go up and down
00:03:32.200 | and under and through.
00:03:33.360 | Ideally, for the sake of children,
00:03:34.940 | there would be a whole bunch of garbage in the backyard,
00:03:37.080 | some pallets and some cardboard
00:03:39.120 | and random pieces of rusty tin
00:03:41.280 | that they can either cut themselves and get tetanus
00:03:43.920 | or alternatively build an imaginative fort,
00:03:46.440 | something like that.
00:03:47.720 | So this is where children are really engaged
00:03:49.880 | is when they're surrounded by all kinds of stuff,
00:03:52.440 | all kinds of opportunities where they can build,
00:03:54.320 | they can change.
00:03:55.320 | And usually, this doesn't exist in suburbia
00:03:58.640 | because the postage stamp yard is,
00:04:01.240 | that kind of yard,
00:04:02.080 | the kind of yard that's actually engaging to children
00:04:04.400 | doesn't actually appeal,
00:04:06.680 | doesn't appeal to parents.
00:04:07.800 | We want a nice, beautifully manicured backyard
00:04:10.240 | with strips in the grass from our lawnmower.
00:04:12.640 | And if we're gonna have a child's play area,
00:04:14.640 | it should be a play area
00:04:15.760 | with a small mulched patch in the side
00:04:20.480 | and that's where the children can go.
00:04:22.400 | And that's just not very appealing to children.
00:04:24.840 | And so my observation is that most yards in suburbia
00:04:28.080 | due to keeping up appearances,
00:04:29.360 | especially if it's a rented house,
00:04:30.960 | they're just not actually gonna be
00:04:32.840 | that engaging to children.
00:04:34.560 | Is it possible, of course,
00:04:35.760 | that you can go out in the backyard
00:04:37.060 | and throw a baseball or throw a Frisbee or do something?
00:04:40.320 | It's possible, but it's not,
00:04:44.520 | it doesn't last for much.
00:04:46.120 | And so why are the yards empty in many cases?
00:04:50.040 | Well, it's due to this lack of texture.
00:04:52.120 | It's due to this lack of engagement.
00:04:53.920 | So I think that's the mindset that you should use
00:04:55.840 | when you're judging the particular suburban house
00:04:57.800 | that you're looking at
00:04:58.840 | is get an idea of how much stuff is there in the yard,
00:05:02.880 | how much engagement.
00:05:04.320 | The more packed the backyard is,
00:05:06.240 | the more secret hidey holes,
00:05:07.480 | the more shovels that you can leave out
00:05:09.920 | for your children to dig with,
00:05:11.040 | the more engaged your children are going to be.
00:05:13.240 | But if it's a beautifully manicured rental house
00:05:15.360 | with green grass and maybe one play structure,
00:05:17.640 | if that, you're gonna have a hard time
00:05:19.480 | making that as engaging as you might hope it would be.
00:05:22.400 | Now let's turn to the luxury apartment with a pool.
00:05:24.720 | First, I think that the size of the apartment
00:05:27.720 | is really gonna matter.
00:05:29.320 | And the room structure is also going to matter.
00:05:32.320 | So what I would look for
00:05:33.880 | if I'm looking to make my life easy as a parent
00:05:36.400 | is ideally to have play spaces.
00:05:39.280 | And so if you have a larger luxury apartment,
00:05:41.240 | maybe you can put all the children
00:05:42.360 | into one room for sleeping,
00:05:44.000 | but that leaves another room that's totally empty.
00:05:45.920 | Now you can start to build texture in an apartment.
00:05:48.520 | So if you can put in equipment where they can climb
00:05:50.760 | and couches where they can destroy things
00:05:53.760 | and make forts and pull everything apart
00:05:56.840 | and boxes that they can hide.
00:05:58.440 | And if you can bring stuff in to engage with children,
00:06:00.960 | especially, again, some kind of climbing apparatus,
00:06:03.440 | then you could probably create something
00:06:05.160 | that's mostly equivalent to the other kind of backyard
00:06:11.040 | option because you have the space.
00:06:14.040 | And if you can fill it with material
00:06:15.760 | that's gonna be interesting and engaging to children,
00:06:17.920 | then you know you're on the right track.
00:06:19.720 | Now, the pool is definitely attractive
00:06:24.200 | and it's attractive because it will give an activity
00:06:27.120 | that goes on for longer.
00:06:29.480 | It's not what, whereas, you know,
00:06:31.320 | just a random play structure in a barren yard
00:06:34.920 | is probably good for 20 or 30 minutes of play.
00:06:37.720 | A pool is usually good for an hour or more of play.
00:06:41.280 | I do think it's important that you not have a pool
00:06:44.400 | in your backyard as a parent.
00:06:46.320 | The risks, the drowning risks of having a pool
00:06:49.240 | in the backyard, I'm gonna use strong language,
00:06:52.640 | they're unacceptable.
00:06:54.160 | They are, many people do them.
00:06:56.720 | Tons of people love having a pool,
00:06:58.480 | but if you have children who can't yet swim,
00:07:00.800 | then the drowning risk is enormous.
00:07:03.280 | And you can certainly beef it up.
00:07:05.760 | You could have a cover on the pool.
00:07:06.960 | You can have a fence around the pool.
00:07:08.200 | You can have alarms on the doors.
00:07:09.520 | You can have all kinds of special things
00:07:12.120 | that make a pool right at your house safer.
00:07:16.160 | And those things are all important to do
00:07:17.960 | if you happen to live in a house with a pool.
00:07:20.080 | But every single year,
00:07:21.360 | there are many, many children who drown
00:07:23.440 | due to standing on a chair and pulling open the door
00:07:27.760 | 'cause they watch the parents disengage the alarm
00:07:29.560 | every single time.
00:07:30.760 | So having a pool that's at an apartment complex
00:07:33.360 | or an apartment building that you can go to,
00:07:35.360 | but it's not so easily accessible is a good idea.
00:07:39.480 | The question comes down here is,
00:07:40.960 | are you going to be able to do it?
00:07:42.760 | Is your wife gonna be able to do it?
00:07:44.360 | Or can you just send the children?
00:07:46.040 | Probably not.
00:07:46.880 | So now, the pool may not actually be helpful.
00:07:51.040 | The whole point of the backyard
00:07:52.840 | is that mom can be working inside,
00:07:55.080 | it's three o'clock, she needs a break,
00:07:56.840 | and she says, "Children, go outside.
00:07:58.640 | "I'll call you when it's time for dinner."
00:08:00.000 | And she gets an hour or two in the house by herself
00:08:02.840 | with the children away.
00:08:03.880 | That's the point of the backyard.
00:08:05.680 | The pool, on the other hand,
00:08:07.240 | is she's gonna have to go
00:08:11.560 | and she's gonna have to watch them, usually.
00:08:13.480 | It's very rare to find a place where you're allowed to
00:08:16.840 | or where it would be culturally appropriate
00:08:18.560 | to just send your children,
00:08:20.120 | especially young children, unaccompanied to the pool.
00:08:22.480 | And so that may not be such a big difference for her,
00:08:27.440 | as is hoped.
00:08:28.520 | What it may help out, though,
00:08:30.440 | is doing things like having parties.
00:08:32.480 | You may be able to have more pool parties,
00:08:33.880 | which will help in the social life.
00:08:35.320 | It may provide your wife with more tools
00:08:38.320 | that, let's say she's gonna get together
00:08:40.040 | with other moms and other children,
00:08:41.200 | invite them all over for a pool party
00:08:42.800 | every Thursday afternoon.
00:08:44.240 | Usually, you'll have a lot more payoff with a pool
00:08:47.400 | as a social anchoring mechanism
00:08:50.000 | for children to have children's parties
00:08:53.440 | rather than a simple swing set.
00:08:55.320 | And then you just have the swing set in a bare backyard,
00:08:57.640 | you won't quite know what to do.
00:08:59.200 | But if you have a pool,
00:09:00.300 | then that'll occupy the children for a couple of hours
00:09:02.680 | while the moms and dads can sit around and talk.
00:09:05.600 | I would suggest, however,
00:09:06.840 | that you not just evaluate this
00:09:08.840 | on the single dimension of backyard versus pool.
00:09:12.360 | What I'm more interested in
00:09:13.620 | is what other infrastructure is there in the area.
00:09:17.860 | So let's start with things like a park.
00:09:20.000 | Having local parks is enormously helpful
00:09:23.400 | as a lifestyle option.
00:09:25.240 | Local parks usually will offer some measure
00:09:29.960 | of texture, like I described,
00:09:32.080 | where they're gonna be more engaging for children.
00:09:33.840 | I've seen some bad parks.
00:09:35.440 | Bad parks are usually beautifully manicured,
00:09:38.320 | grass everywhere and some play structures,
00:09:40.600 | and they're dreadfully boring for children.
00:09:43.040 | But if you have a park that is wooded
00:09:44.600 | and has some brushy areas
00:09:46.280 | and has a few different amenities
00:09:48.400 | that the children can engage in
00:09:49.560 | and they can go off and climb trees
00:09:51.180 | and be off by themselves,
00:09:52.620 | that's a very attractive thing.
00:09:53.940 | And so look to see how far away is the local park.
00:09:57.260 | Ideally, it would be awesome
00:09:58.960 | if you had a park that was within a short walking distance.
00:10:02.160 | So if I had to choose between the two options,
00:10:04.560 | I would rather have a luxury apartment
00:10:06.640 | with a pool in the complex
00:10:08.640 | and be able to walk to the park in five minutes.
00:10:11.800 | I'll take that over a suburb
00:10:13.640 | where the park is a 15-minute drive away.
00:10:16.000 | The local park is a 15-minute drive away.
00:10:18.320 | Having a local park is an enormous booster
00:10:21.440 | of quality of life.
00:10:22.800 | And sometimes in the city where the apartment is,
00:10:25.700 | you may have closer access to that.
00:10:28.520 | Think about other activities and other amenities,
00:10:30.880 | things like classes, community organizations,
00:10:34.580 | activities that are not related just to school,
00:10:37.920 | but also you should think about school,
00:10:39.120 | but let's focus on other kinds of things.
00:10:41.420 | If you can be close enough to activities
00:10:43.900 | where you can say to your child,
00:10:46.360 | 10-year-old, ride the bike
00:10:47.760 | and go down to your karate class, it's four o'clock,
00:10:50.080 | and he can just ride over two or three blocks
00:10:52.240 | and he's there, that's enormously valuable
00:10:55.240 | as compared to being car-centric.
00:10:57.840 | I'm enormously passionate about this subject
00:11:01.480 | because I believe that we need to improve our cities
00:11:04.560 | and towns, at least in the United States, quite a lot.
00:11:07.840 | And I'm always torn between what the data indicates on this
00:11:11.040 | and how things could be.
00:11:12.920 | So if we look at birth rates around the world,
00:11:16.880 | what we can see is that cities seem to be toxic to children
00:11:21.880 | if we're measuring them by birth rates.
00:11:25.360 | When we have large, built-out cities,
00:11:29.400 | people stop having children.
00:11:30.920 | And all around the world,
00:11:32.300 | the biggest cities wind up being fairly barren of children.
00:11:37.300 | If people can spread out and they live in the suburbs,
00:11:41.240 | then they tend to have more children.
00:11:43.520 | So we know that families prefer the suburbs.
00:11:45.780 | It's a fairly obvious thing that people prefer
00:11:48.680 | and they want to do.
00:11:49.800 | They go to the suburbs when they have children.
00:11:51.280 | We know that families prefer the suburbs,
00:11:54.200 | and we know that families are able to,
00:11:57.280 | and people in the suburbs have more children.
00:12:00.080 | The problem is I don't think that the suburbs
00:12:01.880 | are actually that great for children.
00:12:05.760 | I think that the suburbs tend to be fairly isolating.
00:12:08.220 | One of my favorite videos that I send out frequently
00:12:11.620 | and reference to people frequently
00:12:12.920 | is from the YouTube channel, Not Just Bikes.
00:12:15.320 | And the video is titled,
00:12:16.200 | "Why We Won't Raise Our Children in Suburbia."
00:12:18.920 | And the summary of the video is that this Canadian father
00:12:24.060 | and his wife, when they had children,
00:12:27.220 | they knew that they did not want to live
00:12:29.040 | in London, Ontario, Canada, where they were from,
00:12:32.180 | because it was a suburb-focused lifestyle.
00:12:34.580 | Instead, they wanted to live
00:12:36.020 | in the middle of a vibrant city.
00:12:37.900 | And they chose Amsterdam, Netherlands.
00:12:40.980 | And the reason they did that, one reason,
00:12:42.980 | is that living in the city can provide children
00:12:45.400 | with a much higher level of independence
00:12:48.540 | and personal autonomy.
00:12:50.480 | Suburbs tend to be very isolating for children
00:12:52.900 | because in order for them to go anywhere,
00:12:55.140 | in order for them to do anything,
00:12:56.580 | in order for them to see their friends,
00:12:58.900 | they have to be driven there by their parents.
00:13:01.700 | And so they wind up sitting in their house all the time,
00:13:04.100 | alone, instead of being able to go elsewhere.
00:13:07.240 | And as the evidence demonstrates in Not Just Bikes video,
00:13:12.020 | he shows how in the Netherlands, where in Amsterdam,
00:13:15.620 | where the planning authorities have taken great care
00:13:18.220 | to create both safe pathways
00:13:23.220 | for pedestrians and bicyclists
00:13:27.340 | that are separated from cars,
00:13:28.940 | as well as to build out a robust public transit system,
00:13:32.560 | Dutch children have greater personal freedom
00:13:35.900 | and greater autonomy.
00:13:37.300 | A nine-year-old Dutch boy can easily ride his own bicycle
00:13:41.660 | to his school and ride home again.
00:13:43.400 | So he can take himself to school
00:13:44.620 | in a neighborhood school easily and back again.
00:13:46.980 | And as a parent, you can feel totally happy about that
00:13:49.420 | because, and totally confident about that
00:13:52.020 | because of the good engineering
00:13:53.780 | that keeps bicyclists separated from dangerous vehicles.
00:13:57.520 | In addition, though,
00:13:58.660 | the same Dutch boy can ride to his friend's house.
00:14:00.860 | He can take himself to his sporting events.
00:14:02.600 | He can take himself to his after-school events and classes.
00:14:06.420 | He's basically an independent child
00:14:09.580 | that doesn't have to rely on his parents for everything.
00:14:13.260 | And in my interest in maturing children,
00:14:16.700 | this is actually enormously important to me.
00:14:18.460 | I think we infantilize teenagers
00:14:20.220 | and still children even, eight, nine years old,
00:14:23.140 | and we expect them to do things,
00:14:25.860 | in today's world, we keep them from doing things
00:14:28.600 | that they really should be doing.
00:14:29.820 | Throughout history, it's not been any way abnormal
00:14:32.940 | for eight-year-old children to run freely around a city.
00:14:36.980 | But in today's world, there are various reasons
00:14:40.300 | that we highly restrict our children from doing that.
00:14:44.900 | Now, some of those reasons make sense.
00:14:46.460 | I think the biggest reason that makes sense
00:14:48.380 | has to do with the threat of vehicles.
00:14:50.780 | For those of you who are not parents
00:14:52.260 | who are just listening to this particular commentary,
00:14:56.060 | the way that you perceive automobiles
00:14:58.400 | changes enormously when you have children.
00:15:01.460 | And everything that formerly seemed like,
00:15:02.940 | "Oh, it's no big deal,"
00:15:04.420 | when you have children,
00:15:05.260 | you understand how unpredictable children are
00:15:06.980 | and how unpredictable cars and drivers are.
00:15:09.100 | And separating your children
00:15:10.560 | from the presence of automobiles
00:15:11.920 | becomes a very high concern,
00:15:14.700 | something that is very important.
00:15:16.620 | And most American cities are designed
00:15:20.380 | primarily around convenience of drivers and automobiles
00:15:24.300 | and not around the convenience of pedestrians
00:15:27.060 | or other forms of transit or transportation.
00:15:30.440 | So this makes cities very dangerous places for children.
00:15:34.680 | The vehicles are the major problem.
00:15:37.740 | And so if you can separate vehicles out of a neighborhood,
00:15:40.820 | or if you can separate vehicles away from the pathways
00:15:44.620 | where individuals will walk or will bicycle,
00:15:48.500 | it creates a much more welcoming,
00:15:50.540 | much more wholesome environment
00:15:52.260 | where you can be more confident for your children
00:15:54.840 | going back and forth to school,
00:15:57.120 | going back and forth to their friends' houses.
00:15:59.420 | Now, some of those things are cultural
00:16:01.420 | and some of those things are real.
00:16:03.500 | The culture has become so uptight around managing children
00:16:07.460 | that if you allow your children to do something
00:16:09.900 | that was totally normal 20 years ago,
00:16:12.180 | then there's a good chance
00:16:13.620 | that somebody's gonna call the cops on you,
00:16:15.540 | at least in American society.
00:16:17.100 | That's a separate problem.
00:16:18.580 | But it is genuinely a problem
00:16:19.740 | that we need to create distinction and differentiation
00:16:23.260 | and keep the cars where the cars belong
00:16:25.180 | and really build neighborhoods that are safe for children.
00:16:28.460 | So that's a real danger.
00:16:30.900 | There are other dangers that people worry about.
00:16:32.840 | People worry about dangers from predators
00:16:34.820 | and things like that for children.
00:16:36.700 | Those concerns obviously have to be considered,
00:16:38.820 | but from an analytical perspective,
00:16:41.640 | they really don't bear out.
00:16:42.780 | Today, we have far greater safety for children
00:16:45.500 | than ever before.
00:16:46.400 | And in fact, the best and safest places for children
00:16:49.820 | are in highly populated areas.
00:16:51.780 | If you have someplace like the suburbs,
00:16:54.240 | where there just aren't that many people out on the roads,
00:16:56.580 | aren't that many people out,
00:16:57.860 | then somebody who wishes to harm a child
00:17:00.460 | can often do so without a great deal of external observance.
00:17:04.540 | But if your child is passing through busy city streets
00:17:07.580 | and somebody tries to harm him,
00:17:09.220 | then there's a much greater sense of safety and security
00:17:14.020 | for him in those city streets
00:17:15.500 | where there are many people around
00:17:16.620 | that can see and protect the child.
00:17:18.340 | So what I'm kind of opaquely driving at here
00:17:21.580 | is that it's not all about the backyard.
00:17:25.460 | The backyard is really only relevant for a few years,
00:17:29.140 | that point in time from say two or three years old
00:17:31.940 | to maybe seven or eight or nine years old,
00:17:34.580 | where the child really just needs a place
00:17:37.100 | to be able to play and the noise level is super high,
00:17:39.940 | so you want the child to be outside of the house.
00:17:42.400 | Once you get past those years, however,
00:17:44.220 | I think it's all this other stuff
00:17:45.980 | that winds up being much more impactful
00:17:48.620 | and much more valuable.
00:17:50.060 | Your 10-year-old will appreciate the park
00:17:52.440 | much more than a small backyard in suburbia.
00:17:55.100 | Your 10-year-old will appreciate proximity to friends
00:17:57.980 | and other families more than the particular feature
00:18:01.000 | of any particular house.
00:18:02.620 | Your 12-year-old and 13-year-old will gain more
00:18:06.180 | from being able to have a higher degree
00:18:07.700 | of independence and autonomy,
00:18:09.060 | being able to come and go rather than being stuck
00:18:12.240 | where mom and dad have to drive this person everywhere.
00:18:15.140 | There are some other factors we could add in.
00:18:16.540 | We could talk about weather.
00:18:18.020 | For example, I grew up in South Florida.
00:18:20.380 | I grew up where it was hot.
00:18:21.940 | I grew up in a house where we didn't have air conditioning
00:18:24.020 | and in my day, back in my day,
00:18:27.100 | we just played outside all year round.
00:18:28.980 | I didn't really care about heat.
00:18:30.480 | What I've observed, however, with friends and family members
00:18:33.420 | is that the heat has become a bigger deal.
00:18:35.140 | It may be hotter than it was before
00:18:37.060 | or we just could be softer than we were
00:18:39.580 | or maybe just the distinction between
00:18:41.420 | an air-conditioned house and outside
00:18:42.940 | is more shocking than it was.
00:18:44.140 | But if you're in Florida or in Arizona
00:18:47.380 | and you're thinking about the summertime,
00:18:48.940 | it doesn't matter how much texture you have in the backyard,
00:18:51.660 | there's a good chance that the children
00:18:52.660 | won't wanna be in it.
00:18:53.860 | And so the vote would go for the apartment complex
00:18:56.980 | with the indoor pool so that it can be used more.
00:19:00.860 | So weather is always a factor.
00:19:02.300 | Also though, think about factors for you as a father
00:19:05.180 | or for your wife as a mother.
00:19:06.900 | Factors of where are your friends, where is your work?
00:19:10.260 | If you could live in an apartment
00:19:12.380 | that is two blocks away from your job
00:19:14.980 | and you can walk back and forth to your job,
00:19:17.100 | I would pick that over a house in the suburbs
00:19:19.740 | that's 30 minutes away from your job.
00:19:21.780 | Because if you can walk back and forth,
00:19:23.540 | not only can you trim your expenses
00:19:25.060 | by perhaps being a one-car family
00:19:26.860 | instead of a two-car family, which is convenient,
00:19:29.060 | but you just free up so much time.
00:19:30.920 | So you can leave for work at 8.55
00:19:33.700 | and you can come home for lunch,
00:19:35.060 | have lunch with your family,
00:19:36.060 | and you can be back home at 5.05
00:19:38.020 | to take the children to the park,
00:19:39.260 | and that's when your wife gets a break.
00:19:40.980 | So as you obviously already know,
00:19:43.020 | it's not just one thing versus another.
00:19:45.460 | If I had to choose between having a yard
00:19:48.340 | versus having a pool,
00:19:50.340 | probably the yard is the winner
00:19:53.240 | because of the ability to send the children outside,
00:19:56.940 | get noise separation from the house,
00:19:58.860 | and the fact that you're probably never going
00:20:01.040 | to be able to send the children unsupervised to the pool.
00:20:03.960 | But if the apartment were two blocks from my work
00:20:08.080 | and I could walk back and forth easily,
00:20:10.760 | and I could come and go with the children,
00:20:13.760 | and I could walk them down the street
00:20:15.360 | to their piano teacher and everything is super integrated,
00:20:18.720 | I'll take the apartment because of the whole factors,
00:20:21.960 | especially with the park.
00:20:23.800 | And we'll just insert an hour or two at the park every day,
00:20:27.640 | which is just around the block,
00:20:29.420 | rather than having the barren backyard.
00:20:32.580 | So I really like urban living
00:20:35.020 | while also recognizing that it's not the choice
00:20:38.940 | that most parents usually make.
00:20:42.420 | Where I would like to see us go
00:20:44.260 | is to take the things that are good about the suburbs
00:20:47.580 | and change the way we design houses
00:20:50.900 | so that we design villages
00:20:52.860 | that cater to the needs of families
00:20:54.900 | rather than just houses
00:20:56.500 | and we'd got to do everything ourself.
00:20:58.520 | That is really the model.
00:20:59.720 | And the model that has been historically normal
00:21:02.600 | throughout time is to have clusters and clumps of houses
00:21:06.880 | pushed together for all of the benefits of neighborliness
00:21:10.440 | and community living, things like that,
00:21:12.860 | but then to also have common areas
00:21:14.860 | where all of the things that you need common areas for
00:21:17.720 | are set up.
00:21:19.400 | And when you do that,
00:21:21.200 | I think you get the best of both worlds.
00:21:23.060 | So that's really what I would like to see us do
00:21:25.040 | is build and develop more village models
00:21:28.560 | and that integrate that
00:21:30.160 | without trying to do everything on individual land.
00:21:32.280 | When you try to do it all on your individual land,
00:21:34.600 | you wind up with big yards, big houses,
00:21:37.200 | spread out suburbs where there's not enough people nearby
00:21:40.280 | to get up any kind of outdoor game.
00:21:42.080 | There's not enough friends.
00:21:43.400 | So the outdoors just doesn't seem appealing.
00:21:45.940 | And there's not enough real recreation spaces
00:21:49.960 | because it's just not big enough.
00:21:54.320 | You drive down a suburb and as I said,
00:21:55.840 | you see every seventh house has a place structure
00:21:58.640 | in the backyard and it's usually empty.
00:22:01.000 | So I appreciate the benefits of the suburbs,
00:22:03.440 | but I think we need to go a step further
00:22:05.080 | and we need to redesign the suburbs in favor of families
00:22:08.540 | and we need to redesign cities in favor of families.
00:22:11.280 | And that's a real personal interest of mine.
00:22:13.520 | If you're interested in more of this,
00:22:14.640 | check out some of the urbanism stuff
00:22:16.860 | that you can find online.
00:22:18.460 | I would say not just bikes
00:22:19.600 | is probably a good introduction to that.
00:22:21.880 | I'm really a big fan of the strong towns work.
00:22:25.120 | So check out strong towns
00:22:26.560 | where people are actively talking about it,
00:22:28.280 | not just from a utopian pie in the sky,
00:22:30.640 | we can fix all of this,
00:22:32.020 | but more of how do we work with what we have,
00:22:34.680 | the infrastructure that we've inherited
00:22:36.760 | and make our towns flourish in a way that is possible.
00:22:41.000 | And so I'm super passionate about promoting strong towns.
00:22:43.980 | And I think that some of that overall thinking
00:22:46.140 | is going to factor in,
00:22:47.480 | but hopefully I've given you enough ideas
00:22:49.040 | that you should be able to differentiate
00:22:50.840 | between these options a little more clearly.
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