Future Forward

Seyi (00:03)
Hello Reza, how are you today?

Reza (00:05)
Good shay, how are you doing?

Seyi (00:06)
I am good. am good. should say my typical, hello, hello, Yes. Yes. welcome our listeners. It's another episode of future forward and Reza, you will be diving deep on a topic we sort of touched on in our last episode that we felt needed a deeper dive.

Reza (00:10)
We can't miss it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, you made me so curious after the last episode where one of the things, we did the five events that shaped cities and one of them was rapid urbanization in megacities. I was like, wow, man, we just scratched the surface there. I really want to know more about megacities. so that's what we're going to talk about today is the future of megacities. But before we jump into that, Che, let's welcome our listeners and then we'll talk about this really interesting topic.

Seyi (00:43)
Yeah.

Perfect.

Yes.

We'll dive in. Yes. Welcome listeners to our frequent listeners. Thank you so much for always coming back and listening and participating and to our new listeners. Thank you. We're excited to have you here on Future Forward. And as we always say, Future Forward is a show about cities that came about as a result of conversations Reza and I used to have.

almost every Friday at a local Starbucks, almost halfway between us, our homes. And we thought, you know what? This is interesting enough that we want to bring everyone else into the conversation with us. And we do this by bringing in experts, diving deep, researching topics that are interesting and satisfy our curiosity about how we build.

sustainable cities with thriving communities in them. So welcome. And as we mentioned, we're going to be diving into mega cities today.

Reza (02:07)
Yeah. know, Shay, you did such a good job last week of sort of touching on those five events that shape cities and megacities is a very interesting topic. you know, we lead by curiosity, you know, and just it made me like want to know more. And it's a very dynamic and complex phenomenon, you know, of urbanization.

megacities and megacities is defined as cities with a population of 10 million or more. And they're really reshaping our economies, our cultures and these sustainability efforts. How can you sustain a megacity and keep the thriving, the communities within it thriving? And so we'll touch on, we'll use our typical approach of starting with the history. so how have

cities historically grown into becoming mega cities? Like what are the factors that led cities to be able to become very large? Then we'll talk about the present reality, like what's going on right now, some key statistics on mega cities, some of the trends and challenges. And then, you know, one thing that I was very curious about is what's preventing cities from expanding indefinitely? What are the constraints? And then you're going to touch on two of our 21 laws that really apply over here. And then we'll end with strategic foresight about where we're headed.

the opportunities and risks in the next 30 to 50 years for megacities. Yeah, let's go. the historical context, how did cities become megacities? And it really started with, in ancient times, there was urbanization, the first cities, Uruk in Mesopotamia, Mohenjo-Daro in the Indus Valley, Thebes in Egypt. There many other examples like that. They grew as trade,

Seyi (03:36)
Fantastic. Let's dive in.

Reza (04:00)
agriculture and governance hubs. And most cities remain relatively small due to the limits of infrastructure, sanitation, transportation, and this becomes a factor in its growth. So then we had the Industrial Revolution and the birth of large metropolises. This was in the 1800s to the 1950s. And so this industrialization, this Industrial Revolution really fueled mass urban migration, especially in Europe and North America. By 1800,

We had the first city to reach one million, that was London. So that was a big milestone, a major milestone in urbanization. And this was all driven by the shift from the agrarian economy to the industrial economy with key technological advancements like the steam engine and improved transport infrastructure. so steam engines could be used in these factories, steam engines also could be used for trains and transportation infrastructure. So you really saw this rapid growth, this concentration of people in London.

By 1900, we had two cities, New York and London, that had surpassed 5 million people, becoming the world's first true metropolises. And these really came about because of improvements to sanitation and public transport, high density housing, taller buildings. And that really enabled larger cities to function as a system. And we'll keep coming back to this sort of system view of why cities could grow this big.

But the megacity boom really came about right after that, from the 1950s to today. In 1950, like I said, there were only two of them, two megacities, New York and Tokyo. But by 2000, there were 18 megacities, and this was largely due to rapid urbanization in Asia and Latin America. And so today there are now 33 megacities with over 500 million people living in them. The majority are in Asia, Tokyo, Delhi, Shanghai, Dhaka.

Jakarta, Mumbai, with others in Latin America like Sao Paulo, Mexico City. And we also have a rapid growth in Africa with Lagos and Cairo. And so these regions are rapidly developing. So let me pause over here, Shai, about this historical context and how we came to this concept and this enablement of mega cities and see what threads you can pull.

Seyi (06:24)
Yeah, no, thanks. Thanks for sharing the history. And the one thread I'll pull there is just to touch on the thing that made it possible for so many people to live in those cities. Because on the agrarian front, we got our water from wells, from streams. But as people moved into cities and rivers and people moved into cities and we maintained this very

Non-sanitary maybe is the simplest way to where the waste and the input were mixing essentially. And you had cholera outbreaks and the great stink in London, 1858. And Dr. John Snow.

Reza (06:58)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Seyi (07:15)
figured out what was going on and helped galvanize the government of the country, but mainly in London to address the stink. And the stink was sewage in the rivers spilling over into the smell that they could even experience in parliament at that time.

And so they fixed it, trust leaders to fix a problem when it really affects them, you know? And so they addressed it and put in public water systems. And I will suggest here, this is the real point of my historical context, that infrastructure and the ability to provide good functional infrastructure, in this case, water and wastewater,

Reza (07:45)
Yeah

Seyi (08:09)
and waste is what led to the rise, huge rise in being able to house and feed and provide for and serve millions of people in dense areas.

Reza (08:27)
Yeah, such a great observation. How can a community thrive if they're not healthy? And that was the unlock to identify it and allow cities to continue to grow. So great, great point there. So let's jump to the present. Jay, we'll move on and talk about the state of mega cities today. And so I have a bunch of statistics. We love our data. So let's talk about that.

Seyi (08:33)
Yep. Yep.

Reza (08:53)
So half of the world's population, this is mind boggling for me, 4.5 billion people now live in cities and expected to rise to 68 % by 2050. The largest megacities today by the numbers, Tokyo, 37 million, Delhi, 32 million, Shanghai, 29 million, Sao Paulo, 22 million. So you can see we have these very, very large urban areas, urban cities. The fastest growing ones are Lagos, Kinshasa and Taka.

So you see this growth in Africa as well. And this is really driven by high birth rates and rural migration. People from rural areas moving into cities in these developing countries. China alone, and this is fascinating, has 19 cities with over 10 million people. I think 50 years ago they had none and now they have 19.

And so it's just rapid urban expansion is shifting global demographics, especially in Asia. And urbanization rates, while North America and Europe are already highly urbanized, you know, over 80%, Africa and Asia are urbanizing rapidly. So they're sort of catching up with rates of three to 4 % annual growth in some regions. So that is the part of the world that is rapidly urbanizing and megacities are starting to grow over there. So I'm to pause there.

Get your comments.

Seyi (10:20)
Yeah, no, we sort of touched on this a little bit last week in the Mega Cities episode about the rapid rate of urbanization in China especially, and it coincided with industrialization. it is fascinating to see that it's happening across the world, honestly. Yeah.

Reza (10:40)
Yeah, yeah,

exactly. And so with this, we have challenges that come up. And so this is the second topic that I wanna talk about as we talk about the present day. We have infrastructure strain in roads, transit, utilities are often overwhelmed. Here's an example, traffic congestion in Jakarta and Mumbai cost billions in lost productivity. I was in Mumbai recently, I mentioned to you how they're trying to build infrastructure to actually address that traffic congestion, housing crisis.

We have mega cities that have vast informal settlements, slums. Over 40 % of Mumbai's resident live in slums. And I talked about that in the Mumbai episode two weeks ago. That's a big challenge. We have environmental pressures. Beijing and New Delhi struggle with severe air pollution, especially from industry and traffic, diesel engines, the industry around there, the farmland outside that burns the...

crops during the winter to start planting for the next spring. I've experienced that when I've visited Delhi in the winter, just crazy, terrible smog and pollution. You have rising social inequality. Urban wealth continues to grow, but there's this steep contrast with deep poverty that occurs there. Sao Paulo has both luxury high rises and massive favelas side by side. I mentioned in

Mumbai, you have these tall skyscrapers, luxury skyscrapers right next to the Charles. That's a big challenge there. And then you have climate vulnerability. Coastal megacities like Bangkok, New York, Manila, Mumbai, they face increasing flood risks due to rising sea levels. And so they're going to have to address that. So those are some of the challenges that these megacities are going to face, Shai.

Seyi (12:29)
Yeah, no, thanks for sharing that. I think it's time for us to sort of touch on one fact we've mentioned a lot on this show, which is that the big cities, the biggest cities in the world, the most impressive cities for whatever your metric is, are both economically and ecologically dependent on the water.

And as you were going through that list of challenges, it was either economic or ecological. always, it's that those two constraints exist. And I know the next part of this is when you start to talk about limits to growth and we'll dive into that a little bit more shortly.

Reza (13:08)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Those two.

Yeah, I

think this is a great segue, Shai. This was thing that I was curious about. What are the constraints? What limits growth in these megacities? Can cities continue to grow bigger? There are four constraints that I identify. There are physical and geographical constraints. Tokyo and Mumbai are landlocked by mountains or water making further expansion difficult. Mexico City and Jakarta

Seyi (13:28)
Yeah.

Reza (13:50)
face land subsidence sinking due to over extraction of groundwater. So you have these, you know, just physical challenges with it. The second constraint is infrastructure and governance limits. As cities get larger, managing the services for the city, whether it's transport, waste, water, electricity, it becomes exponentially harder as the system grows. You have traffic gridlock in Manila, power shortages in Lagos. It shows how infrastructure struggles to keep up

as the city grows organically. It's hard to make this long-term planning while organic growth is happening and not knowing where are the best places to put your infrastructure. The third is economic and social inequality. it's that housing shortages, they drive extreme inequality. So in Hong Kong, you have these coffin apartments. It highlights what happens when space runs out, these tiny, tiny rooms that a person lives in. It's probably the, some of them the size of my little

study here, a little closet. So it's a really critical issue there. High living costs just pushes lower income residents to the outskirts as well. And so it causes massive daily commutes. Like I mentioned in the Mumbai episode, 7.5 million people come on the commuter rail from the suburbs into the central city. And it's just a crazy.

Seyi (15:02)
Yeah.

Reza (15:14)
know, crazy amount of people that go on that rail system, but it's because they can't afford to live in the city. And then the fourth one here is environmental and climate risks. You you have these rising sea levels for cities like Jakarta, which is already planning to move its capital because of it. You have air pollution, mega cities like Delhi, like I mentioned, you know, causes major public health crises. It shortens lifespans. They have to shut down schools, school days, you know, certain parts of the week. They have to shut down businesses for certain part of the week because the

Seyi (15:17)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Reza (15:44)
you know, the air pollution is so bad. you know, all of these four things, like you mentioned, it's economic or ecological. So let me, you know, I'll let you pull the thread here.

Seyi (15:52)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's time for us to bring on one of our favorite experts on systems thinking, Donnela Meadows. She wrote a book about the phrase you've mentioned, limits to growth. She wrote it with Dennis Meadows, Horgan Randers. I can't remember the fourth gentleman's name, but it was published in 1972.

Reza (15:59)
Yes.

Wow.

Seyi (16:22)
With

the idea being, they were so far ahead of their time. It was this idea that as we've consistently said on the show, that cities are systems and all systems have limits to growth. It will at some point grow because there's a finite set of resources you're pulling from.

Reza (16:26)
They were so far forward. Yeah.

Yeah.

Seyi (16:50)
even as you experience exponential growth. So what are mega cities, but huge population of people with high resource consumption in a finite area and there will be waste generated on the back end of that, obviously. How quickly are you replenishing the resources you utilize as you grow? And if we assume that

resources are finite, if we think of the borders of a city, it means at some point you will overshoot the resources that you have. And that idea, that concept of overshoot is mentioned in the book where you sort of overshoot the carrying capacity of the space you're in or the resources that are available in that space. And once overshoot occurs,

Reza (17:27)
Mmm.

Seyi (17:47)
That's when you start to the, the, you've hit the limit. You break it a little bit. And how do we typically address this? The cities around the mega cities start to experience their own growth as well. To your point, people are having to travel vast distances to get into the city because they want to participate in the growth, but they cannot afford to. And then the scarcity starts to become a thing within.

Reza (17:50)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yes. Yeah.

Seyi (18:17)
the borders, whether that's artificial, landlocked, waterlocked or whatever it is, you will have these exceedances of the resources and collapse is the word they use. But what is collapse if not really the fact that homes become unaffordable for the vast majority of the people in the city?

Reza (18:45)
Yeah.

Seyi (18:46)
the inequalities are very, very, the charlots and the big homes that you mentioned are side by side because where else would they be? It's impossible. You've sort of started to hit the limit. And so the ecological or economic collapse which follows is...

Reza (18:55)
Yeah.

Yes. Yeah.

Yeah.

Seyi (19:12)
an indication of when you've hit the limits to the growth of the city you're in or the resources you have available within this confined area. So I'll pause there, but it was very clear to these scientists and system thinkers that there are limits to growth and we as humans, we consistently find ways to break them.

Reza (19:16)
Yes. Yes.

Yeah, I love that.

Yeah, that's such a good way of putting it. Thank you for bringing that example, these experts. What foresight they had about what was going to come based on systems thinking, and we're exploring that as cities as systems. And your categorization of economic and ecological collapse is really sort of goes back to how we talk about cities being sustainable and thriving.

Seyi (20:06)
Yeah,

absolutely.

Reza (20:07)
That

is a factor of, you know, economical and ecological issues that have to be addressed. You you want to do it in a sustainable way so your ecology, you know, operates well and you want to do it in an economically good way so your communities thrive within it. So I just realized that as you talked about that category, it comes back to how we think about cities. So that was really helpful. So, you know, we pick...

Seyi (20:13)
Yep.

Yep.

It is. It is.

Reza (20:35)
two laws, Shade, that I think touches on this and it goes back to these factors that we have identified that are challenges for MegaCity. So why don't you touch on those, Shade?

Seyi (20:46)
Yes, so the two laws we picked, law number four, regional cooperation enhances sustainability. And you've really covered this with the Austin, San Antonio and the San Marcos and the, is it San Marcos? Yeah, in between and Kyle and Buddha that are now seeing the spillover from Austin and San Antonio.

Reza (21:02)
Yeah, in between San Marcos is in between.

Yes.

Seyi (21:14)
And the idea behind this law number four is that sustainable cities cannot exist in isolation. There has to be coordination with surrounding municipalities and rural areas for sustainable regional development. Again, back to that ecological and economic requirement for sustainability. And this comes from research that we saw from Willa in 2002, where him and his cohort

argued for the importance of regional approaches to urban sustainability. The consequence we've mentioned a few times already, if you do not cooperate regionally, even as your city grows into a mega city, there will be inefficient resource use, conflicting land use policies and cross boundary environmental issues. Floods do not know the

line between Austin and San Marcos. That's kind of not how it works. So that law accurately describes what is going on there. And then the second law we've picked is number 18. Urban metabolism requires circular thinking. Back to the systems thinking ideas here where cities should be viewed as metabolic systems with flows of resources, energy and waste.

Reza (22:14)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Seyi (22:42)
Adopting this circular view allows us to optimize these flows to keep the city sustainable and the communities thriving. It was John Snow's, Dr. John Snow's circular thinking about, hey, the waste we're generating is what is causing the problems in our water and the health problems we're experiencing. Let us manage our waste better.

Reza (23:09)
Yeah.

Seyi (23:12)
not mix it with our drinking water and very quickly issues were addressed. Maybe not quickly, but issues were addressed. And this law comes from our review of the research from Kennedy et al, where they applied the concept of metabolism to urban systems and the need for resource flows in a very sustainable way, circular way. And

Reza (23:15)
Yeah, that's a great.

Yeah.

Seyi (23:41)
We've shared enough examples already on this episode for the consequence if you do not address that resource depletion, increased waste and absolute environmental degradation, which we all say we don't want. So we should think about the circular approach to managing the waste in our cities.

Reza (23:44)
Yeah.

Yeah. Those are two really good ones, Shae. I'm glad you picked those because they really touch on some of the core of what the challenges of megacities are. And so what we will do now, Shae, is we're going to sort of project into the future strategic foresight, like where are megacities going 30 to 50 years from now? Where are headed? So by 2050, the world could have 50 or more megacities with Africa and South Asia leading the charge where we will see more megacities over there, like I touched on earlier in the episode.

Seyi (24:12)
Yep.

Yeah. Yeah.

Reza (24:33)
I'm going to divide this into two sections where I'm going to talk about some of the challenges that could define the future that we need to overcome and then end on a positive note with opportunities for these future megacities. Let's touch on four of the challenges. You can have a lot of climate refugees and displacement. Coastal megacities may lose millions of residents due to sea level rise forcing mass migrations. This is a topic that we're

know, probably going to do an episode on like the future of migration. This is really going to cause this climate migration is going to be a big issue. We're to have this inequality gap. And so will megacities become divided into ultra rich and ultra poor zones, or will we actually try to address affordable housing? What policies will the best megacities implement and what reforms will they implement so that it doesn't become just the rich and the poor?

Seyi (25:06)
Yeah.

Mm.

Reza (25:30)
There could be political instability and governance issue as the cities swell, governance may struggle to keep up. So some megacities may sort of break up into multiple smaller autonomous districts to decentralize the governance of them. And then the fourth one is the shift to new urban centers. Could we see the decline of some overburdened megacities like Dhaka or Cairo in favor?

Seyi (25:43)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Reza (25:58)
of new cities built from scratch? I don't know if new cities built from scratch is the answer, but that's a challenge that could occur. But before I jump to the opportunity part, Shay, what do you think about the challenges? Anything that I missed?

Seyi (26:02)
Hmm.

Yeah, no,

they make so much sense. I love the breaking it out into the economic and ecological again. It's a framing that Donella Meadows and Crew had as well, where they had a model in, and I can't even imagine how much better those models would be today. They had, I think it was called the World Three Model, if I remember correctly.

Where they didn't make predictions, they painted scenarios. They modeled out future scenarios and every single one of the four things you've shared came out as vectors that they tweaked in each model to see where the future might be and some of what we might need to do. So your assumptions about policies, resource utilization.

Reza (26:47)
interesting.

Yeah, fascinating.

Seyi (27:11)
political consequences of not understanding the limits to growth in cities as mega cities grow and the displacement of people as a result of climate, which is a combination of both the ecological and economic overshoot that is possible. It came up as well, but they also had some ideas about

the opportunities. So you'll touch on that and I'll chime in.

Reza (27:41)
Yeah. Yeah.

So here are my three predictions or three opportunities for future cities. so prediction number one, we'll see the rise of secondary cities. So instead of this endless expansion, we're going to see new urban centers that will try to revive and address some of these challenges that these mega cities have. And the example here is Chengdu or Ibadon in Nigeria. So they will emerge to balance growth. Prediction number two is

more decentralization of urban planning. Cities will become more multi-nodal with smaller hubs connected by transit, connected through a governance system rather than a single urban core with a single centralized urban government. So that's my other second prediction. And then the third one is sort of the best megacities are going to implement new urban technologies in a way that is not

the sort of smart city, just technology for technology sake, but really based on addressing these ecological and economic challenges. And we've touched on some of these sort of future technologies in prior episodes, but as we talked about those, we talked about like, which of those technologies actually make the city sustainable and those communities within them thrive. And so I believe the best megacities will figure out the way to implement

Seyi (28:56)
Yeah.

Reza (29:10)
technologies that address these issues. What do you think, Shay?

Seyi (29:14)
I have to agree. And again, I really appreciate the framing because if I touch on each one very quickly and tied back to limits, limits of growth, the scenarios they painted and there was a sort of an optimistic slant similar to what you just highlighted with secondary cities, which is a rebalancing essentially.

Reza (29:41)
Mm, rebalance a

system.

Seyi (29:44)
Yes, exactly. And you nailed it with that one, that scenario, the rebalancing of the system and personal, quick personal story here. I grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, but I was actually born in Ibadan because my parents were both, they both went to University of Ibadan and the last, the second to the last trip that I took

Reza (29:59)
Mmm.

Seyi (30:13)
to Lagos, I went to Ibadan to go do some work with a gentleman who's doing some fantastic work with the utility grids and stuff back there. And that rebalancing is already happening. A lot more people have moved to or moved from their villages, from the rural areas and do not come to Lagos because

Reza (30:29)
Really.

Yes.

Seyi (30:40)
You almost have to go through Ibadan to get to Lagos from some parts of the country and they're just staying in Ibadan. And so that, it's so amazing that it's happening. A gentleman who I believe now lives in Austin, Texas actually built a technology incubator. He moved it from Lagos to Ibadan and it is a really good

Reza (30:44)
Interesting. Fat, Interesting. That's a great example.

Really?

Seyi (31:11)
rise that I see. So you nailed it with that prediction Reza, secondary cities as a thing, because the stress is what needs to be rebalanced. And how do you do that? It's by raising some cities and building the necessary infrastructure. Granted the road transportation between those two cities is not that great yet, but the more economic activity exists between the two, there will be resources allocated to fix that. Yeah.

Reza (31:15)
Thank you. Yeah.

Yeah, I'll try that. Yeah, yeah,

yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah, that's a really good example, Shay. I'm so glad you brought it up because part of what we're trying to do with Future Forward is sort of that strategic foresight, seeing some patterns of what is occurring in the today that we think are good examples. And

Seyi (31:58)
Yep. Yep.

Reza (32:03)
You know, I really want to come back and talk about the new urban technologies prediction that we have. We have touched on it, but we talked about it in sort of a futuristic sense. I want to like have an episode where we're actually seeing what new urban technologies are working, real examples in real cities so that we can see, is this on the trajectory of addressing these challenges that we see? you know, with every episode we get excited about, you know, sort of pulling a thread on something else. So.

Seyi (32:09)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I agree.

No,

it's so good. I think what you're saying is that that episode was a lot more the episode on the future technologies. We leaned a little bit into the optimism angle there, which is valid. It's what you do. It's scenario planning. And you want to pull the threads towards a better future. Imagine the future exactly. And then what you're

Reza (32:46)
Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Imagine the future.

Seyi (33:00)
offering we should do, which was also done in book, Limits to Growth, was tack on the realistic constraints of the day and say what is working. What is working? What can we amplify? What can we minimize towards this mitigation of the challenges and optimization of the

Reza (33:11)
Yes.

Yes.

Seyi (33:28)
of the possibilities. and this, this technology doesn't have to be actual physical technology. Some technology is how we implement policies and consequently changes to that as well. What are we seeing today that can work even better in the future knowing the constraints we have. So I think we just got ourselves another episode to our long list of possible episodes.

Reza (33:38)
Yes.

Yeah,

I already wrote that one down. Yeah, and thanks, Shae, for your example because it sort of sparked the idea. I love that you talked about Ibadon because it made me think about it. So the way that we want to close, Shae, is we typically have a call to action or a mailbag section over here. And today's is a combination and it's really related to the episode today. So for those of you who are watching this on YouTube,

Seyi (33:58)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Reza (34:24)
You'll see that I'm wearing my Austin FC t-shirt and I'm about to go for a game. Austin FC is playing San Diego this afternoon at Q2 Stadium and my son Zal and I, have season tickets, we love going to the games and we've talked about the Q2 Stadium as a really amazing third space where the fan experience makes you feel like an Austinite. It's welcoming, you feel like you belong, you go there, you...

you instantly feel like you're in Austin. And part of the reason why Q2 Stadium works really well is we have a bunch of local businesses that are the vendors in the stadium. And so you feel like you're in Austin. And what happened recently, we now have season tickets, we're in the Northwest part of the stadium, and we found a new place to get tacos. It was called Taco Flats, really near, very close to where we were sitting.

Seyi (35:04)
Yeah.

Reza (35:19)
And we were so excited because the tacos were great, you know. In Austin, tacos are important. So we got some great tacos there. And I was looking forward to going to the stadium today, getting my tacos. But what's happened is Taco Flats shut down. I heard from my friend Carolyn, she had gone a couple of weeks ago. I'd missed that game because Zal had a birthday party. But she texted me and said, Taco Flats is gone. And so, you know, we, you know,

I was like, why? And so she deep dived and read it to find out like what happened. And it seems that the stadium is making it more and more difficult for local vendors to have a sustainable business. And there are all these rules and regulations and the Taco Flats owner just at one point said, know, four games into the season or that, hey, we're shutting down. This is not working for us, which is very, I'm very, very sad about it. And what it was replaced by is even more disappointing.

Seyi (36:15)
Yeah.

Reza (36:17)
which is Double Dave's pizza, some national chain with terrible pizza. Not to diss on Double Dave's, but there's much better pizza than that. So it's just disappointing to see that Q2 stadium is losing a little bit of its identity. And it goes back to this idea of a mega city. You could just become any city if you don't retain your identity. And small things like this

Seyi (36:21)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Reza (36:46)
third space where people come together in Austin and feel like they're an Austinite and feel like they belong to this place and this team, when you lose, mean, those little things actually make a meaningful difference to your experience while you're there. Like, how does it feel for me to know the Taco Flats owner versus buying a pizza at Double Dave's, What do you think?

Seyi (37:08)
You nailed it with the Anywhereville USA comment. It's exactly how a lot of people have felt about what's happening with the Austin airport as well. So the Austin airport, if you've been, it's small by most standards, you get fewer direct flights to fewer places than say you're one of the big ones in Dallas or one of the big ones in Houston.

Reza (37:12)
Yeah. Yeah.

Hmm.

Seyi (37:37)
But what you did get at the airport was some of the local businesses providing the concessions while you wait to get on your plane. Well, that is no longer the case. It's expanding. Yeah, much fewer local brands in there. And while, yes, it's great to have a bigger airport that you can get to more places because it was a pain to be.

Reza (37:53)
Yeah, much fewer. Yeah.

Seyi (38:05)
plane hopping to get to Dallas before you go out of the country or something, you didn't have to lose the local businesses. Anyone who's passing through Austin, who stops at the airport should be able to say, you know what, I remember Austin Airport because it had XYZ, but in the...

spirit of just growing and making it difficult for the small vendors to do business, Austin is losing that identity too. And you want to be careful about that. Otherwise you just become bland like anywhere else, which unfortunately, in my opinion, is part of how you reach the overshoot of what makes you Austin, Texas or whatever it is. Yeah.

Reza (38:39)
Yeah.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes,

Such a good way of tying it to the airport. I have noticed that as well and tying it back to the system issue of overshooting when you start losing identity. mean, these are subtle things, but they actually are meaningful in how you feel about a city. so, yeah, so with that, Shay,

Seyi (39:19)
Yeah. Yeah.

Reza (39:28)
As always, this was so much fun. We love doing this. I love doing this with you. And I hope our listeners enjoyed it too. We'd love your feedback. We have our email, hello at future4.fm. You're welcome to even send us a voice note, record something, send it to us. We'll play it on the podcast. if you, we say rate and review, like and subscribe, but if you add a review to...

Seyi (39:30)
Yes.

thing.

Absolutely.

Reza (39:58)
our podcast platforms, we will happily read it on the show to share it with others. So I encourage you to share your reviews about that. We'll read some of the reviews we already have. But yeah, thank you for listening everyone. Can't wait to talk to you the next time. And yeah, see you the next time around. Bye.

Seyi (40:20)
Thanks, bye.