Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign the City the Baba Podcast where we bring together top actors in the smart city arena, sparking dialogues and interactions around the stakeholders and themes most prevalent for today's citizens and tomorrow's generations.
I am your host Tamlin Shimizu and I hope you will enjoy this episode and gain knowledge and connections to accelerate the change for a better urban life.
Smart in the City is brought to you by Babel Smart Cities. We enable processes from research and strategy development to co creation and implementation. To learn more about us, please visit the Babel platform@babel smartcities.eu so welcome back everyone. I have to say that this is quite a very special personal episode, kind of a full circle moment for me because it's very close to my heart. Some of you may know, but I'm originally from Colorado in the US and it is a place that is super prominent in my life. It's where I grew up for most of my life. And I actually grew up in the suburbs of the beautiful city of Boulder, Colorado. Therefore, it is my utmost pleasure to get the chance to talk to none other than the mayor of Boulder, Aaron Brockett from yeah, from Boulder, Colorado. Welcome, Aaron.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Thank you so much, Tamlin. I'm excited to be here today.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: Yeah. So excited to have you. Of course I know all about Boulder, but I don't know everything about what you' doing kind of from your lens and your perspective. So I'm really interested to to learn from you today.
And of course for our listeners, people might not know really about Boulder yet, so we're going to get them warmed up with a bit of a teaser question I want to ask you. If you had to describe Boulder with only three words, what would they be and why?
[00:01:57] Speaker B: Stunningly beautiful and educated.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: Hmm.
Nice. Nice. I like it. And just because I know the normally I don't do this, but just because I know the city also very well, I was apparently I'm also supposed to give three words here of my. Of mine. So I'm going to try to do my best here.
When I think of Boulder, I just think mountains.
I think clean and green.
That's kind of the image I have in my head. I don't know. Do you agree?
[00:02:34] Speaker B: Well, absolutely. And yeah. So in terms of why just that we're nestled at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, right? So it's right where the Great Plains of the US Meet the Rocky Mountains. It's been, it's to our east, it's all flat. And then right where we are, the beautiful flatirons are red rock formations rise up above the city with the high mountains of the continental dividend, past that. And it is just such an extraordinarily beautiful place, which is why I had to start with that. But then also, we're the seat of the University of Colorado in Boulder, so one of the world's premier research universities.
So we have education and academic excellence at the forefront of our city's culture as well. So I'd like to think about our physical location and then our research universities being the kind of the two big things that make us who we are as a city. The two biggest things.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: I like it. I like it.
Now I want to learn a little bit more about you as a person, too. You have an interesting background, from what I know.
Can you tell us about it? Tell us, where did you come from? How did you end up in your role today?
[00:03:38] Speaker B: Yeah, Well, I grew up in a little town in Tennessee, and I was there because my father was a college professor. So being around colleges and universities is something I've been doing my whole life. So grew up in this little college town, went to school on the East Coast, Swarthmore College outside of Philadelphia, and then met my wife there. We stayed on the east coast for a while, but we were drawn to Boulder a little over 20 years ago when our first child was born. And my wife's family is not too far away in Cheyenne, Wyoming. But from the moment that we first visited, I knew that Boulder was going to be the right place for us. And we was such a good decision to move here 21 years ago. So we've raised our two kids here.
They're now 19 and 22 and doing great.
And then my day job was in software, so my wife and I had a small company together for 20 years doing computer programming, software development.
But right now, government is my passion. And so I've been on the city council for almost 10 years and mayor for three and a half.
So that passion for local government, municipal government, and making our community a better place is what really inspires me and. And gets me going every day these days.
[00:04:49] Speaker A: Cool. Thanks so much for. For letting us know a bit about you.
We already kind of set the scene a little bit for. For Boulder with. With when we are warming up, but maybe to dig in a little bit deeper into setting the scene of Boulder. What is the climate like? What is. What is the community like in Boulder? Can you. Yeah. Kind of help us paint a picture there?
[00:05:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, we're quite high altitude, so about 5400ft, which is maybe about 1800 meters in elevation. So it's, it's a kind of a warmer place, a drier place. It's a semi arid climate. So I'm looking out my window and I can see the foothills and so there's some beautiful trees, but not too many of them. You know, it's, there's a lot of grass here as well.
Less of the big forest that you see like in the eastern part or the U.S. so it's a, it's a, it's a mild climate. You know, it gets cold in the winter and warm in the summer. But it's always, you always have a variation. So it's nice. The, the, the high altitude and the dry air make sure that you always have some variation. So it's very pleasant and livable overall, as long as you don't mind a little snow. We do get snow, but it melts. It melts pretty quickly there. But we have just such a warm and friendly population here as well. So I think people love to live here and I think that love of this place expresses itself and everyone, you know, being a little bit extra nice to each other.
Also very well educated. As I mentioned with the University, we have 17 federal labs that do one form of research or another here in Colorado or in Boulder.
So, you know, lots of people doing all kinds of fascinating work. A lot of tech companies, a lot of natural science companies, a lot of natural foods companies. So there's Pat. There's this passion for the outdoors and for healthy living.
So we got all kinds of great stuff going on here in Boulder.
[00:06:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I was, I was just thinking also that I should have said for one of my words, like active, like there's. Because Colorado in general, we have a lot of elite athletes that come to the state and train there because of the high altitude and beautiful, you know, places to go, trail running and biking and so many other sports.
I was also thinking. So of course now we've painted a picture of a beautiful place, which it is 100%.
But there's also challenges. And because with beautiful places that are nice and good places to live, we have an issue of housing and affordable housing. Right.
So while Boulder has been at the forefront of sustainable urban planning, I think affordability remains to be a big, big challenge there. So what strategies are you using to ensure housing is attainable and sustainable?
[00:07:34] Speaker B: Yeah, so we have a huge housing affordability issue here because we have. The people who've come before us have built a really desirable community. It's such a beautiful place. We've used smart growth tools over the years to make sure that we're not sprawling all over the place, that our wild backdrop mountain backdrop is protected so very, very livable. But that means that a lot of people want to live here. And so then that drives the price of housing up.
So this is something that we work on all the time. It's one of the couple greatest challenges we face as a city. And we're dealing with it in any number of different ways. And so part of it is making sure that there's a good chunk of our housing that is permanently deed restricted, affordable to people of low to moderate incomes.
So we have an inclusionary housing program whereby 25% of all new developments have to be deed restricted afford and either built on site or paying into a fund where they the units are then built somewhere else, not too far away in at least equal or greater numbers as if they were provided on site.
So that program has been very successful. We just passed our 4000th affordable housing unit last year. And this is in a city where the total housing stock is about 45,000. So almost 10% of the city's housing is that affordable housing. So that's an amazing resource for a lot of the people that work here but would otherwise not be able to afford to live here.
But, but that's only a portion of the efforts. Then we also try to work on attainable housing. So housing that's priced such that, you know, people who are middle income or at least upper middle income can, can afford housing. And so we've been doing a variety of rezonings and housing code changes to encourage smaller units, more smaller units, because you know, a 800 square foot unit is inherently going to be a lot cheaper than a 2,000 square foot unit. You know, like a.
And I'm slower at the conversion to square meters, but that's okay.
But I'll let you all do that. So, so to encourage, instead of large single family homes or really large condos, to encourage smaller units and more of them. And so those will then rent or sell at a lower price point to make sure that there are opportunities for people who need market rate housing but at a price point that they can afford. So a lot of code changes in that way. We allow accessory dwelling units across the entire city. That's been a change over the last few years. You know, like an apartment above a garage or in a basement, we're allowing duplexes and triplexes. And in most of, or much of the single family residential areas now. So there's this effort to increase the variety of Housing, the amount of housing, as well as limiting the price of some of that housing. So I could go on about this for hours, but that's the tip of the iceberg there about some of our efforts.
[00:10:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, this is a topic that almost every single city is faced with right now is affordable housing. It's a huge topic here in Europe as well, I guess. From your perspective with the work that you're doing on that, do you have a tip or a piece of advice or something that you think has been really impactful to share with other city leaders?
[00:10:46] Speaker B: Well, I would just say that offer the caution that there's no one thing that's going to take care of all of it, and also that it's important to get started as soon as you can. I mean, everybody's thinking about this. I'm not going to tell people necessarily something they don't know, but that, like, I was just in Vienna, which is the home of social housing. Right. They've been doing this for 100 years. They've been more successful than probably any other city.
And so we can look at that and admire that and think, gosh, we're so far away from that. But it's. Don't despair. You can start wherever you are right now. And the housing. If you create things that have. That are sustainably funded and built in a way that the affordability is maintained over time, then any place that you start is going to make a lasting difference. So the problem can seem overwhelming, but every single unit of housing that gets built that somebody can afford to live in, that's a place where one family now has a solid, safe place to live so that you're transforming lives, you know, one. One house at a time.
[00:11:42] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Really good advice there.
I want to dive into climate topics now.
I know that you've highlighted the importance of leveraging natural systems for carbon capture and climate resilience as kind of your platform and what you're trying to do in the community.
Can you share some specific specifics around that would love to hear how you're pursuing natural carbon capture, etc.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: Absolutely. This is something that we've been doing a lot of work on in Boulder specifically recently, because we've all been working on reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. And that work continues and continues to be very important.
But we know at this point that the climate is changing, the world is warming, and so we can't run away from that. We have to acknowledge it and we have to make sure that our communities are climate resilient as the as the climate changes. And so one way that we're really working on this is about enhancing native ecosystems for purposes of climate resilience.
Because a native ecosystem is what's best adapted to this area where wherever it is that you live, it's the native ecosystem that's going to be the most efficient and the most functional and is a way to, if you take like an area that's a brownfield development, you know, maybe it's a parking lot or there are a bunch of weeds, this kind of thing, and you're transform that into a native ecosystem that's going to capture carbon and store it. So it's going to, you know, reduce the carbon in the world as a whole, but it's also going to then create this ecological benefit so that the local plants, animals, bees, insects, all the different species that thrive in a native ecosystem, that they'll come back and then it'll also provide a natural place for people to take refuge in and to get cooler. Right. Because you have the trees and the shrubs and things like that. So it provides these co occurring benefits to both the humans and, you know, our natural friends if you enhance those native ecosystems. And so we're doing that like we have this green belt around the city of open space that we've purchased over the years. And so we work always to maintain the health of those ecosystems, but we're also working on building those up inside the city so that new developments, when they incorporate, they should always have green spaces. And we strongly encourage those green spaces to be done in a way that mimics the natural landscape.
Because it helps in so many different ways if you do that.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: Yeah, and I guess the biggest risk for Boulder is really wildfires.
As far as natural disasters go.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: How.
[00:14:25] Speaker A: Are those natural ecosystems protecting? And also, are there any other initiatives that you're doing to prevent wildfires?
[00:14:37] Speaker B: Yeah, this is a big topic and it's very much front of mind right now. Of course, we've had horrific wildfires in the US over the last few years. In Los Angeles a few months ago, in Hawaii, not long ago, and then right here in our own backyard in Superior, where you grew up. And Louisville had a thousand homes burned in the Marshall Fire a few years ago. So very much front of mind for us right now.
So the, the native ecosystems evolved to adapt to fire and so they work very well if they are healthy. Then the kinds of wildfires that will happen there will be a low and lower intensity type that is much less likely to then roar into town and burn down a lot of homes.
So what we try to do is restore those, the native functioning of those ecosystems because they are very well adapted to fire. So part of what that means is tree thinning. So a lot of our forests, like our local ponderosa pine forests, are supposed to be savannah like environments where there's a tree, you know, every, you know, every 20 or 30ft, something like that, every 10 meters.
And whereas right now they're very overgrown in many places because there hasn't been that low level of fire that's gone through regularly.
And so it needs attention. So we thin those forests to, to make sure that if, if and when there is a fire that'll stay at that lower intensity level, rather than, you know, burning through all of those extra trees and then building up to a level of heat that'll threaten the community.
So we see that over and over again with the, the forests, with the grasslands, that a healthy native ecosystem is going to be much better adapted to fire and therefore much less threatening to the humans that live nearby.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: Yeah, it's such an important topic and one that we're grappling with across the board on also like emergency response and how to prevent. And then when it happens, what do we, what do we do? And I think we, we really need to have these holistic approaches in mind as well.
The other thing I'm thinking about is with these type of initiatives, how are you involving the community, how are you engaging with local residents around kind of climate resilience projects? Do you have any examples in mind?
[00:16:48] Speaker B: Definitely. Well, that, and thank you for asking about that because it's so important to make sure that the local community is engaged. And so this is something where, when we have community events, we always have the climate folks out talking to people about these efforts. And the climate folks or the fire department, you know, these cross departmental groups speaking to folks. But we also want to make sure that we go where people are. So we make sure to have block parties on a regular basis in different neighborhoods. And in particular, one focus of ours in the last few years has been making sure that we're doing additional outreach to historically marginalized communities and folks who might not normally feel comfortable coming to a governmental event.
So what that means is we have several mobile home parks in town that is kind of our largest reservoir of affordable housing that isn't government subsidized. And so we've made a real effort to have block parties in each of those parks where we come in. And then we have folks who are fluent in both English and Spanish, because Spanish is our most common language spoken other than English in the city. And actually our third most commonly spoken language is Nepalese, interestingly enough. And so we've added a Nepalese component to our, a lot of our events as well.
And so make sure that there are folks who can talk to people in the language that they're most comfortable with and then talk to them about these efforts, but also then get their input on the problems that they're seeing. And so for manufactured homes, for example, often don't have as much insulation as a fixed foundation home. And so then the warming world can often impact folks in those housing units more than in other places. So we kind of get that feedback from folks and then also, you know, help plant trees to add cooling.
And also we've done some replacement in the case of wind damaging, but when things are replaced to make sure that it's done in a more efficient way.
So just this effort to get out into the community and make sure that the people whose voices maybe haven't been heard in the past are being elevated these days because inevitably, as you get natural disasters and the impacts of climate change, they're going to hit the lowest income communities the hardest. So that means those are the places we need to go to proactively to make sure that they have the support that they need.
[00:19:03] Speaker A: Thinking really good point. I love this approach of block parties.
What happens doing a block party? Like what, what is, what activities do you do? Is it, do you do any, you know, fun games? Do you do a party? Sounds a bit ambiguous, I guess. So I'm curious on what exactly you do at a block party.
[00:19:24] Speaker B: Yes, it doesn't involve like throwing blocks at each other. So just to be clear.
Well, I'm thinking about one. So I of the city's largest mobile home parks is a couple blocks from my house over here. And we're just creating a new city park on the south edge of that park, of that mobile home park, a new city park called.
Yeah, Primus, Primus Park. And there was a block party to kind of announce some of the aspects of their park, but also to get in input on what people most want in that park. And that was done kind of on, on the edge of the mobile home park.
And it was a great event. So we had, there were food, there was great food. There was a couple taco trucks there. We had a bubble machine. So like the kids are running all through the bubbles. They're having such a great time there. There was music, there were Aztec dancers. So it was like music, culture, food, fun for Kids, fun for adults. You know, a little bit of, of speaking. Like we had a brief speechifying section, but it was brief, you know, but just to show that the city was there and that we cared. But then also presenting information at these different booths and then getting information as well. So it was like, you know, wrapping the kind of important work of the city and a lot of fun and tastiness and beautiful culture as well.
[00:20:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I was going to ask you a follow up question on this. I think you already kind of summed it up quite well. But I do want to touch on it. I mean, the majority of Boulder is quite affluent. It's a. People are wealthy sometimes. You know, there, there's, you know, most of the houses, the single home houses are over a million euros. And we touched on this. But how can we really.
Yes. Going into the community block parties, that all sounds like a great initiatives, but I guess more on a holistic scale. I'm really wondering from you, how do we embed inclusivity into what we do and make sure that those people are not alienated in places that are so affluent?
[00:21:31] Speaker B: Yeah, it's such a great question because there is a great deal of wealth in Boulder and you're right, the housing prices are so high and so even folks, you know, who are newer to the community often have a lot of money. People have been here for a while, may have a lot of equity in their home.
So it's, but it's, we do absolutely have folks in lower income categories as well and middle income people in that spectrum. So I think the important thing is making sure that we're available as a city to everyone.
But this is where I talk about that proactive outreach to the, the marginalized communities. Because, you know, we have a lot of really smart people here of all different income levels. We have a lot of affluent people here.
And those people who are, do have more privilege, we often hear from more. So we welcome their voices, like every resident's voice matters. So we love to hear from folks, you know, if they have a high income or if they have a low income. But people who are more privileged are often the voices that we've heard from more in the past. So this is where we've really put in the effort in the last few years to focus less on, you know, who is coming to us, but making sure that we're also going out to lots of the different communities in town, including the ones we don't hear from so much. So, so for example, our, our police department has liaisons with different communities in town. So there are multiple Spanish speaking officers who are liaisons to our Spanish speaking community. There are multiple black officers for liaisons to that community. We have liaisons to the LGBTQ community, to the Jewish community, etc. Etc. So making sure that there's this, this direct connection between city services and the city organization and people that might not have engaged with government as much in the past.
[00:23:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I really like your approach there. I'm wondering, as a leader, I, I guess you don't plan to be mayor forever and I actually don't know. Is your, is your term ending soon?
[00:23:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I have a year and a half left in my term and I could run for another two year term. Not sure if I will or not, but definitely not mayor for life. This is temporary thing.
[00:23:41] Speaker A: That's, that's, that's too much, right? You don't, that's like Supreme Court judge style.
Not for mayor.
I'm just wondering at the end of your, like, one and a half years, you can go to bed easy and rest because what does basically I'm trying to ask, like, what does success look like to you? What do you hope to have accomplished at the end of the next one and a half years?
[00:24:06] Speaker B: Absolutely. Well, I will say that this is in our form of government, which is a council manager form of government.
I'm not the executive officer of the city, so our city manager is the person who runs the city from an administrative standpoint. And as mayor, I'm the head of the city council. And so we pass the laws and the ordinances and the policies that are then implemented by the, the city manager and the city organization.
So it's a fairly egalitarian setup. And so I try not to have a lot of ego in this because I'm, you know, I'm one of nine council members.
And you know, while I, you know, talk to the media or things like that, it's, it's not kind of up to me as an executive to make it all happen. So just to, to preface it by saying it's a group effort, not all up to me, but certainly efforts in the housing and development space have been very important to me. So this, making sure that we have this wide variety of housing types at a wide variety of price points is hugely important to me. And so that's one of the things that I think about a lot as I think about some of our successes and see some of the new projects that are getting built that do have those, you know, lower prices or better housing types. That's, I find very satisfying.
Certainly services for folks who are struggling or in need is critically important to me. So some of those efforts that I mentioned about us getting out into those lower income communities and providing additional services, you know, I mentioned the manufactured housing parks. Over the last 10 years, we've passed five or six different ordinances to make life in those parks more safe and more stable for those residents and then worked with our state legislators to add a bunch of legislation at the state level to add additional protection. So like, that's the kind of thing that, that I think about and say, like, wow, we, we really got something accomplished that makes a real meaningful difference in the day to day life of people who are struggling some of the most in our community. So that, that's the kind of legacy that, that I want to leave a part of. Anyway.
[00:26:08] Speaker A: I, I really like that focus.
On the flip side, what do you, what keeps you up at night? What are the bottlenecks that you're still facing? The main challenge that you think that you haven't gotten there yet. It's still a big, big challenge.
What keeps you up at night?
[00:26:26] Speaker B: Yeah, well, there's, there's a lot of cares of the city and cares of the world, you know, that make it easy to toss and turn rather than get a restful night's sleep. For sure.
I will say something we haven't talked about yet, but unsheltered homelessness is a huge, huge problem in Boulder as it is in the entire country of the United States. We have a huge societal problem of not having enough homes and shelter for people who are struggling economically or with health issues of one kind or another. So, and this is a problem that's, that's very significant in Boulder. So we've had a lot of successes. Like We've housed over 200 people that were out on the streets over the last few years who are now in what's called permanent supportive housing. So a housing unit of their own that has wraparound services provided as well to help with whatever challenges they might be experiencing one kind or another. But we still have a lot of unsheltered homelessness out there. And so these are folks who are some of our most vulnerable who do not have a safe place to stay. And so they're incredibly vulnerable. And then camping in the community does have an impact on other members of our community as well. So. And it's this huge societal problem, very challenging to deal with with the resources of one city.
So we've, we've made progress, but we have a long way to Go. And so that like what do we do next to make additional progress on this incredibly difficult problem is definitely one of those things that I lie awake at night worrying about.
[00:27:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Thanks so much for sharing.
I want to also give you the time right now. We touched on a lot of different topics, but maybe we didn't touch on everything that you're working on and everything that you're passionate about. So I'd like to give you the open floor right now to bring up any topic or anything that you want to tell the listeners.
[00:28:18] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks for that. We, we've covered a lot of the things that I'm most passionate about, but one thing I'll mention is transportation.
So the city of Boulder, for a 100, 000 person city in the US has a very good bus network and we have fantastic bike lanes and multi use paths and greenways and things like that. But there's still a lot of room for improvement. And as I mentioned, I was in Vienna not long ago along with some other Central European cities and the transport network there, the public transport network does, I'm afraid to shame, but it is something that I've been working on very strongly over my time in office on improving those. So we actually have a, we have a bus rapid transit project that's in progress. It's under construction between Boulder and Longmont, which is the next largest city to our northeast.
And we're working very, very hard at establishing a train between Denver, our biggest city in the area, and Boulder and then to points north, including Fort Collins, which is another university city about 50 miles north.
So this is something that has been under like people have been trying to get this done for 20 years. I remember it's been this incredibly long process, but we are getting close. There's been incredible work by our governor, Jared Polis, by our state legislature at adding additional funding sources and people in Boulder have been working on it as well. So I've supported this every step of the way as much as I could and just very much fingers crossed that we're going to be able to get that train done before too long.
So that's a huge passion of mine.
[00:29:54] Speaker A: That's very exciting because I don't know how many times I've done the Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins route in my life, but there's been a lot of times.
But there already has been improvements. I remember you mentioned Longmont. I used to go in between Boulder and Fort Collins by bus some and it used to be back in the day I had to transfer in Longmont and Then they, the buses would never line up and so I never could catch, catch the next one to Fort Collins. And then in the past maybe seven years or something, they added the direct line Boulder to Fort Collins, which I thought was already a big upgrade, but a train would just kind of blow that out of the water. I think would add a lot of amazing benefits. So that's exciting for me personally to hear that that might be getting across the wire a little bit in the near future with transport also. I mean I'm based in Europe now, so of course I know that.
I, I know I'm very, I don't own a car here and car ownership is still very, very high. Do you think? Or what does the data show you or what is, what do you think? Will people actually be able to change their behavior and go to a more I guess, European style way of thinking of oh, we're going to take the train today?
[00:31:14] Speaker B: I think it's possible that you can definitely at least go car light in a city like Boulder. And that's one of the things that I've worked on really hard is that you know, we should be adding, when we add housing, it should be in places that have services and are located where there's public transit and where there's good bikeability and you should increase your public transit and those other transportation options where the people live. So you know, when you do your land use planning and your transportation planning together you make it more and more doable for people to live either without a car or without much of a car. So my, we're a family of four and for at least the first 20 years of our, of our kids lives we had one car for the four of us which in the US is like really pretty low. And there, there is a car share car in the area which has helped us accomplish that. But, but Boulder makes things like that doable in a way that most cities don't. And as we continue to evolve it continues to become more so. And so like we have our transit village area like in 30th and Pearl, that sort of area. And I definitely know people who live in that neighborhood who don't have a car or if they do have a car, they only use it for weekend excursions, not for their day to day living.
So you know, we're, we're getting there a step at a time. I mean a lot of people in the, I mean certainly in the US as a whole, but in Boulder for sure people do still need their car on a regular basis, particularly if they've you know, they work somewhere further away or they have small children, things like this. But I think it's getting more and more doable.
[00:32:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm always so interested to see how infrastructure can help change behavior and what changes it might make. So really, really nice thought also. Just. Just a thought, too. Next time you're in Europe, you definitely need to let me know so that we can. We can arrange something now.
Yeah, I'd love to have you host you in Germany anytime. So now we get to our segment. The segment that I have for you today is called Hot take of the Day.
Hot Take of the Day.
We want to hear an opinion of yours that may be slightly controversial or debated.
[00:33:31] Speaker B: So this is on any topic?
[00:33:33] Speaker A: On any topic. Preferably something to do with your work, but I allow anything.
[00:33:39] Speaker B: Yeah, because I was gonna say, I, you know, I really dislike pineapple on pizza.
[00:33:45] Speaker A: No, I'm. I'm pro. I'm pro pineapple on pizza.
[00:33:49] Speaker B: And now we came into friends.
Anytime I see a pizza with pineapple on it, I run the other way.
[00:33:54] Speaker A: Oh, I'm a big fan of the savory with the sweet, so I can't agree with that one.
Sorry about that.
Do you have anything else in mind?
[00:34:05] Speaker B: I'm trying to think.
It's interesting because I'm a real consensus builder, so I always look for what we have in common and how we can come together on issues. So when I'm thinking about, well, what's something, you know, then I struggle a little bit. Well, one thing that we have had some controversy over is about how important local control is for local cities. And so there, there are a lot of cities that when they talk to the state government, they say, okay, well, what's most important is that you leave us alone so we can do, you know, whatever we want to do in our own city. And an approach that I've taken is instead to say, well, yeah, generally let us do what we think is best, but if, if we lose a little bit of control locally, but it makes the whole state better off in some major way, then, you know, I can let go of a little bit of that local control.
And because we've had some state legislation that's kind of required Citi to take some moves in housing directions that I think are really good moves. And so even though it's taken away a little bit of our ability to pick exactly how we want to approach it, I think it leaves the. The state as a whole in a much better place.
So that. That is one controversial take that I'VE had over the last couple of years.
[00:35:16] Speaker A: I like it. Yeah, I'm not a fan of your pineapple and pizza take, but I like this one.
One for one out of two.
Now we get to the final question. It's a question that we ask every single guest that comes onto the show.
And it is to you. What is a smart city?
[00:35:36] Speaker B: Smart city? That's a great question.
Well, certainly smart city, when you think about smart city efforts, people talk a lot about technology, and so that's certainly an important part of it. Like I think about it, we've just, we've configured all of our traffic lights to be on our fiber network so that they're communicating in real time with our central system so that they sort of. Each signal knows what's happening in the city as a whole and can adjust a little bit based on that.
So certainly things like that, where you're adding data, you're adding technology to make your city function better. I'll give another example of that. You mentioned wildfires earlier. That's one of our biggest threats. We now have multiple cameras trained on the wild areas that are sensing for smoke that could be the indicate of wildfire. And those are using generative AI to train themselves over time to distinguish between smoke from a campfire that's harmless or just haze in the air from an actual forest fire. So this is now adding monitoring that we wouldn't have had the capacity to do in the past just with humans watching those cameras. So those are a couple of good technological examples. But. But I'm going to say, like, the most important way to be smart is in your people, is, you know, you want. We. We all, every place in the world has incredibly talented smart people in their city. And we're very educated as. As well. But I think the smartest city is the one that taps those capabilities of their residents, who figures out ways for people to come together, lend their unique voices and talents to work together, have a more social and livable city and a better place to live for everyone.
[00:37:28] Speaker A: Very good. I like the definition. I'm a big fan of.
Of course, I love innovation and technology and how we can use it effectively with. With citizens.
But yeah, and the end of the day, it's about the people, right?
And how to. How to involve the community. So with that, Erin, I. I don't have anything else for you. We touched on a lot of topics. I just want to thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to come and talk to us. I learned a lot, even though I know the place. I still learned a lot from you and really, really interesting, I think also for our listeners. So thank you so much.
[00:38:06] Speaker B: It's my pleasure, Tim. And thanks so much for having me on. And the next time that you're back in our area of the world, you need to come say hi.
[00:38:12] Speaker A: I'm actually not making it this year. I think usually I come every summer. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to make it this year. But when I'm back again, I will definitely, definitely give you a call. So thanks so much.
[00:38:24] Speaker B: We'll take a rate check for next year.
[00:38:25] Speaker A: Yeah, sounds like a plan. And of course I have to thank all of our listeners.
Don't forget, you can always create a free account on Baba-SmartCities EU. You can find out more about use cases, solutions and other fun stuff there. Thank you very much.
Thank you all for listening. I'll see you at the next stop on the journey to a better urban life.
