The Taproot Podcast - 🌆Interview with Urban Planner and Architect, Andres Duany

Episode Date: July 11, 2022

Subscribe to the podcast: https://GetTherapyBirmingham.podbean.com/e/astrophobia-why-are-so-many-trauma-patients-afraid-of-space/ Join Andres Duany, acclaimed author and urban planner, as he delves into the psychology of architecture and urban planning in the second part of our series: 📚🌇 #PsychologyOfArchitecture Discover the transformative power of well-planned towns and the archetypal elements of design on the human psyche: 🌳🧠 #UrbanPlanning #DesignPsychology Learn from the expertise of Mr. Duany, renowned for his work in Seaside, Florida; Kentlands, Maryland; and Alys Beach, Florida: 🏙️🏡 #AndresDuany #NewUrbanism Don't miss this insightful discussion on the psychological forces shaping our built environment: 🗣️🏗️ #PsychologyOfUrbanPlanning For more information, visit Taproot Therapy Collective: 🌿🤝 #TaprootTherapyCollective Website: https://gettherapybirmingham.com/ Address: 2025 Shady Crest Dr Suite 203 Hoover, AL 35216 Email: [e-mail] Maps: https://goo.gl/maps/cnverPNUPuxiPkbc8 Podcast: https://gettherapybirmingham.podbean.com/ Phone: [phone] Fax: [phone] Uncover the intersection of psychology, architecture, and urbanism with Andres Duany: 🌇📚 #PsychologyOfArchitecture #UrbanDesign #Architecture #Architect #Urbanism #UrbanPlanning #NewUrbanism #CongressForTheNewUrbanism #DesignPsychology #SeasideFL #AlysBeach Website: https://gettherapybirmingham.com/ Check out the youtube: https://youtube.com/@GetTherapyBirminghamPodcast Website: https://gettherapybirmingham.podbean.com/ Podcast Feed: https://feed.podbean.com/GetTherapyBirmingham/feed.xml Taproot Therapy Collective 2025 Shady Crest Drive | Hoover, Alabama 35216 Phone: [phone] Fax: [phone] Email: [e-mail] The resources, videos and podcasts on our site and social media are no substitute for mental health treatment. Please find a qualified mental health provider and contact emergency services in your area in the event of an emergency to a provider in your area. Our number and email are only for scheduling at Taproot Therapy Collective are not monitored consistently and not a reliable resource for emergency services.

Hi, this is Joel Blackstock. Welcome to the Taproot Therapy Collective podcast. This is part two in our ongoing series, The Psychology of Architecture. In our Psychology of series, we focus on the psychology of different professions, like fine arts and music, we hope to feature in some upcoming series. Part two of The Psychology of Architecture is an interview with Andres Duany. Mr. Duany is an award-winning urban planner and architect. He designed, among 300 other towns that his firm worked on, Seaside, Florida, and Kentlands, Maryland.

He is also the award-winning author of Suburban Nation, The Rise of Sprawl, and The Decline of the American Dream. I hope you find the interview with him interesting. As always, not all of the views of our guests represent the views of Taproot Therapy Collective, but we very much appreciate Mr. Duwane sitting down with us because he is an accomplished and ingenious individual. Mr. Diwani is one of the founders of New Urbanism, a movement in urban planning that seeks to restore the design of cities to the way that people will actually live and interact, to design walkable and community spaces,

and to design spaces that foster community and connection. Please bear in mind I was connecting with Mr. Dewani while both of us were traveling and this interview took place after five other methods of communication failed and I had to put a tape recorder next to a cell phone on speakerphone in order to conduct the interview at all. So bear that in mind. Here's the interview and thank you so much for listening. Just to start, you've written and talked a lot, and I don't want to make you recap anything that's already out there that you've said. But the purpose of this is for people who may not be coming from an urban design or architecture background. And so maybe

just a little bit of summary that helps them understand the kind of fusion of architecture and urban design and community planning that you do. Because the thing that made me interested in when we were doing the psychology of series and wanted to talk to you is like, I was a kid in the eighties and I remember coming to seaside and it felt, I just felt so powerful when I was here. And it was because the community was laid out, you know, almost at child height, you know, for pedestrians and not for cars. And there were little architectural follies and like little paths that I could go through in the woods.

And I just felt this magic, you know, and I think the psychology of something like this is interesting and it's not something that you get into a ton in your talks or, you know, the, usually the people you're talking to are pretty technical, pretty professional.

Um, so I don't know if that makes sense or if you, um, if you want to just take it from there, that's a very good introduction. A couple of things about what you said. We used to say at Seaside that if we designed a place in which dogs could go out safely all day, we would have succeeded. That was kind of reality.

Robert Davis had a dog called Budweiser who lived 20 without a leash, you know. And he had the run of the town. He was very popular. He wanted to get tidbits. He had friends everywhere. And of course, dogs are not, you know, they wouldn't survive half

a day in an American suburbia with this traffic. So that was a test. But the other test, the one you're referring to, is 50% of Americans one way or another don't have a car. They're too young to drive, too old to drive, or too poor to have a car. So we have a situation in which, you know, we're so incredibly concerned about accessibility, you know, the accessibility of the handicapped and so forth. And in fact, when they can't even get to the ramp in the first place, you insult McDonald's, well, how do you get there in the first place, you know? So there's vast middle missing, misunderstanding of what goes on and whenever there are people who cannot normally drive are dependent on their parents you know the

famous soccer mom and they have one taste of seaside as young kids or one taste of Paris as older people where they run around on their own it's absolutely exhilarating and it's stunning because they don't realize how constrained they are the public realm in America is designed by engineers they think they're just designing roads for vehicles but in fact designing the public realm they do not take into account the ability of people to get around. Because they think, well, I provide ramps at the corners and red lights and green lights. That doesn't mean the kids can get anywhere.

So this is something I haven't spoken about in a long time. But it is, in fact, one of the great canary in the mine shaft tests. And you give your kid $10 and say, see you at dinner. You see? And the word you use, which is empowering, is precisely the word. So, yeah, it's nice that you remember that. Now, there are kids that were born at Seide now that are that are 35 years old and they have the same they're really really mentally agile yeah you know they're different from the other kids they've been from the beginning sure very very good to them to have had that experience yeah i do think that the way the way that the spaces we inhabit affect us does change society.

I mean, urban planning is probably a discipline you don't think of when you think of politics, but then when you get underneath politics, when you get underneath, you know, economy, like a lot, it's driving the way that we live could consume think and i think go ahead it's readily observable like you just see it i'm now in france you walk out and see it the kids are running free okay but with that and that's how we came up with all these ideas 35 years ago now these days people want you to do a study. They say, what statistics do you have? What are your metrics?

And it used to be human observation, which has been around for 10,000 years. I'm suspicious of that kind of academia. I think that when you're saying, well, we need to do a study, what you're really saying is we don't want to do that. And we're going to get lost in the numbers so that we don't have to pay for it you know um there's also which is it means that they they want to disempower you because you're a person in practice which is threatening to them and they want it to be reset so it's their you know it's their method that is used and i've fought it like a maniac for the last 10 years i mean just violently you know i can't you know i why should it like a maniac for the last 10 years. I mean, just violently.

You know, I can't, you know, why should I do a study for something that's readily observable? Yeah. Just stand next to it and watch. That the sky is blue, you know. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, this is one of the additional things that are making things more difficult rather than less. And there's another thing, by the way.

There are studies i could give you three books absolutely but nobody reads them yeah because there's another the studies are just deep six in the libraries so in the end no i i will not do a study because first of all it's perfectly obvious second of all i want to make it operational not a study per se as an end yeah and third of all to read it anyway. It's a very weak system to write it down. I think Eastside as a propaganda machine in which people get to live it

and experience it and remembering it is much, much better than putting it in print. A lot of the psychology at Taproot is Jungian. I mean, Carl Jung's ideas kind of flared up really big in the 60s and 70s. Everything becomes more cognitive and ego-driven and self-healthy.

Insurance wants quicker fixes in the 80s. Now, because of the trauma and brain-based medicine movement, a lot of that stuff's coming back. I mean, I think, do you feel like there are certain designs, certain ways of interacting with space that we're like, that are archetypal, that we've evolved to need, that we kind of forget about when we design sometimes? I mean, you see trends kind of pop up across society, and it's shiny and it's new, and then we forget about it,

and it's old and dated. But the things that are timeless tend to look the same you know yeah no i completely but there's one yes before i get to that i want to say one thing um the studies have been done there are perfectly good books uh some spectacularly good books that actually not only explain but teach you how to do it. You know? And also spectacularly good books about crime. You know? Not just that life gets better when you design space a certain way.

But crime goes down. Bad things go down. Isolation. You know, the isolation of older people. Yeah. You know, it just goes drastically down. Isolation. You know, the isolation of older people. You know, it just goes drastically down. But there's a disconnect between the studies. First of all,

there's the obvious. You observe. You know, observable, empirical evidence. Then there are the studies. Right? And then there's the delivery system, which is the studies do not get delivered to the people with the, you know, with the do not get delivered to the people with the you know with the levers right to design cities let alone the politicians now there are politicians that on a

one-to-one discussion can understand this and get very sophisticated about it because after all they're humans you know and humans have experienced all of them have experienced walkable sociable spaces and unwalkable unsociable spaces so it's not like this is not something like like a scientific formula in somebody's drawer everybody has experienced good and bad urbanism they all have and so you can alert them very easily to what the issues are very easily and actually you can do it in their office you don't even have to take a walk with them right the problem that they have a very low opinion of in the political discourse of the ability of people to grasp these things and so they oversimplify it and what happens

for example we've had very good connection. Al Gore knows exactly what we're talking about. Bill McKibben knows exactly what we're talking about. And then when they run for office and write a book, they think it is a trifle too difficult to explain. They want the bumper sticker. Now, urban planning is not difficult. That's what's been done for thousands of years by quasi-illiterate people.

The profession is very young. It's been done very well by people who were not particularly literate or intelligent. But it's not nothing. You can't reduce it to a bumper sticker. And that's the problem. For example, zoning is bad because it excludes people.

Well, that's a bumper sticker. Gentrification, talk about a bumper sticker. Now, there's something about gentrification you can say right away. 95% of American cities could use nothing more than gentrification that's what they need they need a tax base there are five percent of american cities that are suffering from gentrification but there's 10 cities in this country that need it right yeah nevertheless you take it down to one thing and you get people coming up to me and to all of us who don't know anything and say well the single most important thing about urbanism is electrification.

And they, it's the, it is, I don't think the politicians are wrong. I do think that their instinct that is beyond their ken, that it's a little bit too complicated, right? To state it in a bumper sticker, to make it a campaign slogan. They are correct about that. But on the other hand, all of us who are newer, but it's time and again in public process, public participation, by taking care to make the case, the pickup is extraordinary. Just that you can't dumb it down the way the politics today demands well and i think one of the things that you said that is a pretty

brilliant conceptualization somewhere i don't remember why you said it um is that when you're designing the city you're you're having a trade-off between public and personal space and something like paris the apartments are tiny and dark but everything is public life you go out When you're designing the city, you're having a tradeoff between public and personal space. And something like Paris, the apartments are tiny and dark, but everything is public life. You go out to the cafe and everything is public. And then somewhere like where I'm from, Hoover, Alabama, there's no public space at all. It's highways and strip malls and title loan stores. But then you go home and you've got your huge plot of land, you know, and your McMansion and the grass.

And we traded all of the public space for private space. I mean, there's a pull that I would argue comes from trauma, you know, cultural trauma and people that are living in more fear, more of a fight or flight reaction, becoming atomized, becoming individual and pushing the public sphere away, distrusting any kind of communal interaction, any kind of shared power that we've kind of been pushed into. And so you see design trending one way through the 80s. I don't know if that's the way that you see it or what you were meaning with that point, but Well, I think it's to find a balance But for example, I do think that when you visit these Paris apartments or even where I am here at France who says it really is You know extremely unpleasant It really is, you know, extremely unpleasant.

Okay. Every spaces. And the McMansions are awesome once you get inside. But for example, there are American cities such as my favorite, I think the clearest example is Charleston. And to the balance of a very good public space and very good private space is almost perfect. You know, and that's what I see. They say, what's your favorite city? I say, Charleston. And that's the reason I give it. I give it technical reason. It's not that it's prettier. It's not that this, it's not that that. It's, you know, it's not that the restaurants are getting better. It's not that the, you know, whatever,

it's not bad because it had slavery. No, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the balance between public and private space is excellent it's one of the best so um going back to the idea of kind of a depth psychology or evolution i mean do you feel like there are ways that we are designed to interact with space that maybe you're not conscious you know we know them when we do them but we don't always and we're not always aware of it one of the things that i got interested in psychology when i was looking at a social anthropology book and everyone assumed for a long time that humans built the first cities because it was easier the quality of life went up because we're in a material in a in a kind of a specialized modern society where everybody has a role.

There's a surplus when it's industrial. But that wasn't the case in the Stone Age. In the first cities, when they actually looked at the bones, quality of life went down. But people still came together to build these things that were hardwired to build, even though there was no material benefit. Yeah. hardwired to build even though there was no material benefit yeah that has been studied at a very high level you know with prospect you know living at the edge of the woods and so forth there are archetypal studies okay that actually show that and then they move on to ever more precise studies like for example how do people sit in a cafe in such a way that the

shops on either side don't die as an example okay and then of course the ultimate in well and it really is archetypal don't underestimate this is the way that shopping mall developers manipulate you. Every possible, whether it be the soundtrack, which is in some cases extremely exciting, whether it be the lighting, which is, you know, humans are like moths, whether it's

the manipulation of the springtime smell, whether it's the manipulation of the springtime smell, whether it is the manipulation of the degree of dryness and temperature of the air, how you circulate from left to right. They're trying to create a spiritual experience. I mean, advertising is the new mythology. Consumption is the new spirituality, almost.

Yeah, and you are manipulated. There are rewards, and then there are, you go through the darkness. There's a boredom sets in, and then the dawn. No, no, I've been walked around with experts, retail experts and it's been absolutely fascinating how what a science it is yeah and uh it is a science yeah and it's archetypal it's uh it's how it is it isn't that a place is it's not enough that a place be safe is that the destination be meaningful and useful, it has to be also comfortable. You have to be comfortable in a very deep way. And comfort is... Now, there's one thing I have to say about Argentine. The first studies were that once certain patterns were established, then they became culturally adjusted.

And this is where the thing is underestimated. Like an Italian does not behave like a Frenchman. And they're both cultures. They just don't. Yeah. There's kind of a cultural and then a universal layer. A cultural layer. And then there is in America, and this is, of course, the third rail,

everything is class. And competition. Even if you are winning that day, you don't know if you're going to win tomorrow. So there's always a fear. You know, the best way, there are very few places that you can't enter in America. Very few lobbies. I mean, what hotel lobby doesn't let you in? They all do. What restaurant doesn't let you in? hotel lobby doesn't let you in okay they all do what restaurant

doesn't let you in okay what shop doesn't let you in everybody lets you in but you feel on you're made to feel either very comfortable or very uncomfortable you don't have to bar a door to keep people out and that is so a science and it called, it's called, they don't call it class anything, they call it price point. It's a price point. So I guess what I'm saying is that Jung and people like that, they were onto something. And rather than being ignored, as you might have implied, it's actually been picked up onhmm and it turned into a science and subsequently commercialized yeah so it's not at all that is disappear at all it's actually central to the way that things are made and sold yeah okay but so I mean in I remember the there was a study recently

that you know Americans go to vacation on these places that are small, walkable cities, either in Europe or Disney World. That's where they're going. But then when you talk about living there, there's this suspicion about like that you're going to get tricked or power is going to be taken away from me. I'm going to lose something. It's like they want to go there two weeks a year but not live there, not inhabit them. Well, I think that's – it's been a long – by the way, a resort. The reason that you're at Seaside and the fact – I mean, we've designed 45, 50 communities. But the famous ones are the resorts.

And that's because the resorts have to be utopian. Because what you do is you have two weeks vacation. You have to go to a better place than your own house otherwise you wouldn't fence it so uh resorts because they're people look for what they don't have in a resort okay they do and it allows us to run experimental platforms our resorts are experimental platforms we push the envelope. You've seen Rosemary and Alice Beach, right? Okay. Beautiful word. Can't be done in a full-time community.

So what happens is that, yes, resources where people go, and one of the things they really love is walking to things that life pulled together. But they also walk, for example, they also want more restaurants in a tighter you're in a tighter radius they also want perhaps more pristine nature more nearby you know what I mean isn't just urbanism but the fact that resorts are where people want to be is because they're better than normal places so you're right about that mm-hmm they also have the advantage in the case of new urbanism, that urbanism cannot just be looked at. It isn't

just about being pretty. People go, that's so pretty, I love seaside. But it's actually, it only really impacts you when you live it from morning till night. You know? And that's why the program at Seaside is so terrific. Because it actually allows you to propagandize the experience of urbanism.

Well, and there's some resistance to making it a real town like Robert Davis wanted that people could live in. And I remember he said that he wanted a school, he wanted a church, he wanted a graveyard. And people were like, well, graveyard, graveyard you're gonna make it a retirement community we don't want you know there was a and it wasn't that he was trying to guide the nature of where the town went he just wanted it to be a functioning town you know not a resort in his case it was autobiographical once he needed a place to get married a place to live a place to have good restaurants and a good market. He needs a place for his child to go to school, and then he needs to die. So he's a graveyard after all. But it's completely autobiographical. That is nothing unusual about that. Like people lay out places

for themselves. You know, you have the power. The Duke makes the castle and the town. And it's a very amusing thing to do. It's incredibly interesting to create a whole society when you have the chance. But it was autobiographical. It was not hypothetical. You know, it is not about a real town. It's just I need it and I'm a real person. Yeah, that's a good point.

Therefore, I need it and I'm a real person. Yeah, that's a good point. I'm a real person, therefore I need it. Yeah, and so I have the power to do it. And of course people fought him every step of the way. But he goes in and kicks it in. The styles that you work in, would you say that you tend towards postmodern classicism or is there kind of a name for it just it just hides a lot of unpopular things like diversity mixed-use density okay you know like you're gonna do something that's denser than usual or more diverse than usual, both economically and in terms of mixed use.

This is camouflage. You can hide anything by having a harmonious style. If this building looks like a glass box and the apartment buildings looks like an 8-grade balconies, and the house, Hansel and Gretel, well, they're incompatible. And they're actually signaling that the thing is incredibly diverse and indeed radical. So it has these styles that assuage the issue, you know, are really very powerful. It's a very powerful propaganda tool to camouflage the very very radical program of New Urbanism. Hmm. That's an interesting point. You know, we had talked to Leon Krier earlier, you know, his thing is classicism versus modernism, you know, and he feels very strongly about style.

I was curious what attracted you to his work, because he had said that you had promoted him a lot early on. Well, because what attracted me is that he actually clarified everything for us, he taught us. And we were very grateful. You know, everybody's confused about urbanism. Everything is confusion. And then a great professor, a great teacher clarifies it for you and that is the most memorable and you're always grateful to me I think clarity what I provide in the public process into a bunch of people who are frightened and confused and everything else I just provide clarity mm-hmm and already is the more than truth actually

because you tell them you have to soften it usually Mm-hmm, but it so it isn't like it's the brutal harsh truth that I'm letting you know now that ain't it It's just let me explain why your tax base is going to shit. Let me explain why you're you Away, let me explain why you are isolated Let me explain what you don't have enough money or enough time and you clarify it for them and then they're grateful and they've already they trust you because you've clarified something for them that's a beautiful way to put it i mean you're really doing group therapy a lot of the time when you're doing urban planning you know that's true that's true and uh considering how much therapy is worth it's worth like i always tell my my friend joanna lombard i say she says she has two meters she said rate for designing and then a rate for therapy and there's a rate for therapy three times as much

so when people get all all worked up and need therapy, she says, well, the therapy clock goes on at $300 an hour. Well, my dad is an architect, and I remembered when I was a little kid, I went to some proposal meeting in this community, and people were getting real emotional. He's a very even-keeled guy. And I was listening to what they were saying, and it was like they weren't even talking about the building.

I mean, they're saying like we're sad and lonely and we want a forum to do this. And you realize, you know, how much of that you encounter when you're not in a mental health profession. But a lot of what you're doing is mental health work to help clarify somebody's pain and give them a solution so that they know what to do that is helpful and then on the other end when you build a beautiful space that you know makes people have a better and richer life that does help heal society on a on a very you know meta level but remember one thing that and this is something that's shocking um there are people who really want ugly dysfunctional

and they're them out of it it's not that they misunderstand it it's just that when you explain it to them they say i understand perfectly i just don't want it and i've seen that in in preference studies i've seen it all the time and one of the things that i'm always warning people about urbanists is that you have to triage you can only save one third of america in with decent walkable diverse urbanism okay because the truth for another there's because that there are people there's another third of people who actually don't want to know their neighbor and they don't even know what you're talking about when you say well it's more social don't want to know their neighbor, and they don't even know what you're talking about when you say, well, it's more social, why would I want to know my neighbor?

You know? I love driving. I love driving my children. I love drive-thrus. I love Walmart. Like, you can't talk them out of it. And then there's a last one-third that is

simply that is because buildings are intrinsically anti-urban. There's a lot in our life, and not just sewer plants and factories. There's a lot in our life that is manifested in buildings that are not walkable and they're not diverse and it's built into them so for example a bank is not going to be full of delightful windows it's going to have a lot of blank walls okay there are there is a place that is perhaps not noxious in terms of pollution but there are trucks by the hundred and that's not something you

want to bring into urbanism mmm and if you go to cities the difference between cities like Paris and American cities as you drive into Paris you will see that there's a huge belt of crap all the way around mm-hmm and a lot of that crap is the crap of the big boxes it's the crap of the trucks it's the crap of the things that have to be too large okay it's that crap what they do is they keep it outside so once you penetrate into that crap and you enter Paris it's no longer betrayed you're never unpleasantly surprised by a hostile environment the United States sprinklers it everywhere.

Like, for example, even the worst city in America, let's say, started before 1900. And you say, this is devastating. It's nothing but shit. Every city can put together 10 city blocks. They're great. Okay? They're just not adjacent you know first with this hostile stuff the problem with the united states is that

we do not segregate the anti-pedestrian environments and the planners what they try to do is they try to eliminate it and of course you eliminate it because it is intrinsically hostile. And you can see them crashing. You can see them saying, well, I really want to get rid of Walmart. And people come up and say, what's this guy talking about? That's where I shop. That's the only thing I can do, you see? And so there is this understanding. Very few of my buddies pick up on it that a third of what is in trends is built is

intrinsically hostile to pedestrians and You have to allocate it you have the triage you can only save one third And if you try to save all of it, you will make all of it mediocre So we push the triage and we're saying onethird is superb and two-thirds are goners. But we don't compromise the one-third which is superb. And listen, our people who just really love the life that we're against, they love it. Even when they understand it, they want it. Mm-hmm. understand it they wanted so I don't know how built-in that is I think

there's a lot of it is cultural rather than then archetypal you know they were just brought up with drive-thrus I can't if you only seen that then how do you how do you have the imagination of for a better world you know you can't and you know one of the things the reason things are ugly is that if you're brought up in every single window you've ever seen in your life is badly proportioned if you ever see a good look a well-proportioned window you don't recognize it the european kids there's enough beautiful stuff in Europe that they can tell the difference. You see, we have lost that. We do not.

All these wealthy, educated people that commission for crap, you know, buildings. That's because they have no reference. It's like you've never eaten good food. So why should you know about good food? And they probably grew up in a high school that looks like a prison you know we build these cinder block windowless hells to put kids in yeah exactly exactly yeah exactly but it's even more subtle because it's not as horrible as a high school it's just that everything's badly proportioned. And so you see a low proportion window and they're suspicious. Yeah.

It's great. It's really something. So, yeah, it's just one of these stones that's rolling downhill. And frankly, I think that we all know about the class distinctions in America. There is something that's going on now, which is, I think that we all know about the class distinctions in America. There is something that's going on now, which is I think there are terrific cultural distinctions. There are people who know about architecture and people who don't, and that's the way it is. And it's a fixed step. Well, that's an interesting take. I don't want to take up too much of your time. I really appreciate all of that. I don't want to take up too much of your time.

I really appreciate all of that. And I don't want to run over. I know initially it was for 15 minutes, and then we got behind with the technology. For some reason, this has been an archetypal interview. I've been saying this for decades. It feels like synchronicity, for sure, even the phone cutting out. Yeah. Is there anything that you want to promote?

You have a book coming out or anything that people can go to if they want to find out more about your work? Suburban Nation is the third best-selling book on the subject of all time. If you want to learn that. It's written at a very good level and explains everything. It's been 20 years now, Suburban Nation. It sells a lot every year. I would always send people to that.

Then there are other books for designers that are very good, very well illustrated, one called The New Civic Art. But now I'm writing more specialized books. For example, we did one called Agrarian Urbanism, which is societies that grow food. It's not about growing food. It's about societies that grow food and the positive consequences of that. We're now working on what I think are the most important things. The first is really affordable housing.

There's nothing, there's not even a second in terms of importance. And then the other thing is, what happens when we realize that we're going to lose the war to climate change? What do we do then? What happens to property values on coasts and things like that? And then where do those people want to go? Yeah, and it will

not have happened, it will not have happened, will not have happened i would think in a radical way but suddenly you realize that that it is a self um you know it's a self-reinforcing system that once you've gone past the threshold it just keeps going right and so what to do when you realize that we've lost it what do you do and you've identified five you want to use the term market segments five responses to it and I'd be happy to talk to you next time about what they are sure they have a lot archetypal responses to crises and they go from the ethical you know the ethical

response you know thermopylae you know holding a stride the gates of fire you know and dying in defense of civilization to a very very rational response which is party on we're dying we're to die anyways. We're going to be a party. These are not denialists. There's a lot of people who are not denialists that are nevertheless partying. Their party continues. And they know that climate change is a lost cause. And that is why they're partying. Yeah. For example, all around us, the number one community in development successful in the United States is Margaritaville.

You know, look it up. Margaritaville is all about partying on. Pretty interesting. You know, I think the thing to do whenever you bring up a subject like, you know, archetypes for work forth the reason that i'm not as excited as i might be about it is that i do is that i think there are multiple archetypes you know for exactly the same thing there are archetypes but it's not a single one it's not like you give your your back to the forest and you face out into the sunlight you know to meet your end that's not that's one archetype there are other ways well there's multiple and you know, to meet your end. That's one architect.

There are other ways. Well, there's multiple, you know, maybe an infinite number within the same person, you know, which is what makes depth psychology interesting, but also people hard to wrangle and hard to understand. Yeah. Well, I think that there's more. There's more than one, but it's not an infinite number. I try very hard to open it up, and I rarely find in fundamental things that there are more than five or six ways to do things.

You know, so yes, and I tell people, yes, it's more complicated than you think. It's more than one, but it's not an infinite number. There's maybe five ways to do it. Politically, what are the choices politically? Well, we know it's not one or two, but it's also not ten. And so I think that the limit, I think when you say, tell somebody there's an infinite number of ways, that disempowers them. And they say, well, I can't understand that shit. I'm not going to study it. But look, there's really five fundamental ways to look at this. They can follow you.

Now, the dumb people will never follow you. You have to write them off. The problem is that if you're always pandering to the dumbest person, to the dumbest question in the room, what you will do before the end of the day is lose all the intelligent people. And I always respond to the most intelligent people as intelligently as I can, and I lose the dumb people. And they're pissed off. They are pissed off, and they're insulted,

and they say horrible things about you. Good riddance. Well, and especially in the American South, like, we have such an avoidance of conflict. People keep trying to make the truth in the middle of two points of view that are bad, and it isn't. Sometimes you have to say, this is wrong, and this one isn't. If one third of the people haven't left the room, you haven't made the point. When we design a community, and they say, well, six people didn't buy today.

They hated it. And only three bought. I said, that's because we have a project of real character. Yeah. You know, if everybody liked it, then go buy, you know, give them a catalog of one of the other things. You know, that's for sale. So, yeah, you've got to be willing. What you mentioned about the sale is you have to be willing to lose sales. You have to be willing to will it what you mentioned about the south is you have to be willing to lose

sales you have to be willing to lose friends you have to be willing to lose a lot of things okay if you're going to stand for something and what i find is that um it is that being popular is a weak platform it's very weak but being indispensable is a weak platform. It's very weak. But being indispensable is a really strong platform. It's almost never the same. It's very hard to be really popular and tell people the truth

they need to know. The people that I know that have smiley face attitudes, they just, eventually people just turn on them. I've been a very difficult, apparently, a very difficult person to deal with. And I'm really not.

It's just that I tell the truth. But I'm always the one that people want to interview. I'm the one that people, you know, we don't let work. I say to a lot of patients, you avoiding conflict does not make you a nice person or a good person. No, no. It makes you nobody, actually. It makes you an interchangeable person.

They'll just find another one. To have the integrity that you're talking about requires you to have done your own work. You know, it doesn't have to be in therapy or it doesn't have to be in church, but there is some kind of introspection where you're not afraid of yourself. You're not afraid of judgment. And most people, most therapists won't do that work. I mean, when I go to a lecture and a lot of the therapists are cognitive only therapists

and I start talking about pushing somebody into the shadow and saying in the first session, yeah, you're talking about your wife and your mistress and your boss and whatever, but that's not really what we're talking about. You can't feel, you're afraid of feeling not as good as other people. You're afraid of not feeling good. So go ahead and do that. I'm better than you. The lamp's better than you. Just feel that. Where is that in your body? And I mean,

the therapists will leave. I mean, they'll walk out the door because they don't want someone to do that to them. They haven't been in that kind of therapy. But then, you know there's a people want that kind of therapy those patients come back yeah so completely exactly what i'm talking about exactly and that goes not only for therapy but for anything you're trying to sell if it's interchangeable with something else then oh you can just compete on price yeah no yeah it's uh you know it's going to be a ford i can look at a gm i can look at this and look at a chrysler but if it's going to be a Ford. I can look at a GM. I can look at a this. I can look at a Chrysler. But if it's going to be a Tesla, I'm not looking at anything else.

And I can charge whatever I want. Yeah. Absolute. But you have to be willing to lose four-fifths of the potential buyers. Mm-hmm. That takes a lot of nerve. And you have to be willing to do things that are scary for a lot of people, to be misunderstood, to be judged.

And the worst fear for a lot of people, to be misunderstood, to be judged, you know, and the worst fear for a lot of people than being misunderstood is having somebody think that they understand you, but they're wrong, you know, especially a creative, you know, that's hard. Well, I hardly know anybody, honestly. I really do feel incredibly isolated is what we're talking about. I have very few colleagues that will actually say that they'll go as far as I will. But I don't think I go any further than you have to go. Well, but that's it's the thing that like when you're hiring therapists or you're training candidates, you can't teach that. You know, people say like, well, I want to do brain spotting. It's this technique that we do that is very experiential.

It puts people in touch with trauma really quickly. You're kind of in a fugue state and the therapist knows I'm teaching them the technique, but the therapist is saying, wait, I can't put somebody in that much distress. I can't do that. And I'm saying, no, you, you have to have faith that the plane is going to land. You have to have faith that this, when you have to be able to make room for this amount of pain and sit with it to help them heal. And if you can't make room for it, if you're afraid of it, that means you need to go back to therapy. I can't teach you how to hold this. And that's the thing you can't teach, you know, people. They have that because they face something or they don't.

Yeah. Well, it must be getting worse because the fragility, right, of the younger people you know very well when we're talking about that. There's kind of a generation of helicopter parents that were able to keep their kids from having any kind of obstacle. And it's not a real life, you know.

And they don't know how to do something robert poke harrison gave a talk and he said i'm ready to quit teaching because kids today want nichi like they want a hamburger and what makes nichi worth understanding is that you don't get it you sit with it that it is hard and there's no room for that in american education anymore yeah yeah yeah yeah well so i just think there have been institutions that were created that were and there's a list and the rules rulers of europe got together on this, right? They decided to subsidize religion, subsidize public school, have a universal draft for young men that remained, they remained with their local regiment all their lives,

under their officers, right? You know, to keep them going straight. The savings bank for the workers, you know. And did I say the subsidized service? There were five institutions. And they took Europe, which was barbaric, okay, Napoleonic Wars, barbaric. They took the West, which was barbaric.

I mean, there were Indian massacres in 1890. Yeah. Barbaric. And they civilized it. Yeah. Barbaric. And they civilized it. Yeah. And what they've been doing in the last 30 years is taking precisely those institutions apart, one after the other. Because that kind of collectivism is a threat to consumerism, you know, consumer-driven, just hyper-consumption. And you get people of a certain age in therapy, they don't understand. They can't explain to you who they are without talking about what they can buy.

Oh, my God. You know, I'm an artist because I have an Apple computer. I'm an individual because I get this TV at Best Buy. I'm into that. And I'm like, okay, stop talking about what you're buying. Who are you? And there's a certain age, certain culture. They can't do that.

By the way, one of the things I saw was a debate between who was more right. You might look this up, whether it was Brave New World or 1984. And we often think and we fear 1984, right? Yeah. Dictatorship, et cetera. And there was a group of five, I think it was five professors discussing Huxley and Orwell. And hands down, audience included, Brave New World won. You know, it is the other thing that's happening.

It's not the dictatorship and the repression and the black slab and the eye everywhere that we've been taught to fear it's actually the manipulation of our brains that it is the winner and it's so interesting it's not the enemy outside it's the enemy inside you know yeah yeah yeah yeah oh that's very well put very well put so that is in fact well, how this fascinating debate came out. And I really, I must say, you know, I've got certain, I don't want to tie everything together into a single thing. But there are several things that have clarified for me what's going on and, therefore, how I should behave, including the potential that I have of making a difference, which is more reduced. If you want to, for example, offer a better life, a more reasonable life, a more sensible life to a few people for a generation or two, that is possible. OK, and you say, well, you're so unambitious.

I said, excuse me. Excuse me. You know what I'm offering here? A better life. Okay? You can't even offer a better weekend, let alone a better life, for a generation or two. Yeah. You know, you can't even keep somebody happy for a day.

Like, I think I'm a megalomania. Yeah. I'm actually thinking of a generation or two. And that's what they're all thinking. Well, I tell patients in therapy a lot that we have one choice under all the things that bring us into therapy, biting our nails, drinking alcohol, whatever. Underneath that, you have one choice in life. Do you look at the things that scare you and you and go into that and grow?

Or do you run from it? that scare you and you and go into that and grow or do you run from it and most people will choose to run and culture works the same way societies work the same way we can be honest enough to make real change or we can kind of lie to ourselves about what the problem is and um and avoid yep, I gotta go now. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.