Future Forward

Seyi Fabode (00:04.453)
Hey Reza, how are you?

Reza (00:06.438)
Good Seyi how are you doing?

Seyi Fabode (00:08.197)
I am good, I am good. Welcome to episode nine of Future Forward.

Reza (00:12.998)
Yeah, one more. And I'm excited about this one, Jay, because this is sort of an episode that is really going to kind of deepen what we're trying to do with Future Forward. So yeah, help tee this up.

Seyi Fabode (00:29.733)
Yes, yes, this episode is episode nine of Future Forward and it is about the 20 laws of thriving and sustainable cities.

Reza (00:43.398)
Wow. So, Seyi, this is interesting because the kind of the genesis for the show, but before we talk about the show, we have to, you know, for our new listeners, we have to share Future Forward is a conversation that Seyi and I have been having for many years and we're bringing you into this conversation. It's really strategic foresight about the future of cities, communities, technology, and trying to understand and explore

the ideas, the systems, and the challenges that we face as we try to build thriving communities and cities. So back to the genesis for this show, both of us recently traveled. I went to New York City with my family, you went to Dallas with your family, and we both had a very interesting experience because we both traveled with the lens of future forward.

Seyi Fabode (01:27.845)
Yes.

Seyi Fabode (01:42.437)
Yes, we did. It was quite interesting. The experiences we were having in those cities as we were texting and sharing were framed because of how much we've been diving into cities, what makes them tick, what is going on when you experience a city.

Reza (01:44.294)
Yeah.

Seyi Fabode (02:10.725)
And it was, we felt we had to sort of come back and frame the show based on a lot of the research we'd been doing over the last few months here and even before the show. But yes, the travel did sort of spark something here.

Reza (02:26.822)
Nah.

Reza (02:31.014)
Yeah, so the way that I described it to you is sort of I was observing the city with a different set of eyes. Like I wanted to understand the breadth of it and then I kept trying to sort of deep dive like I was trying to understand the transportation or sort of the mixed use development or the density of New York City, which is just sort of astounding once you're there.

And we kept going back and forth and sharing what we were experiencing. And for you, Seyi, this culminated in wanting to bring these ideas together. So talk about that a little bit, Seyi.

Seyi Fabode (03:15.557)
Yes, yes, so you are correct that the.

research, experiencing we've been doing. And some of what we've shared already has always been framed from, what is the history? What is the present? And what are the strategic foresights we can glean from the deep understanding we have? And interestingly, a lot of what we've been sharing

is based on some foundational sort of fundamental research by a lot of experts in this field, in this fields of cities and scaling and infrastructure. And so we decided and I thought, you know what, there are some sort of foundational laws here. The cities we visited and the ones we've lived in or experienced

seem to have their own nuance, but there are always these threads that run through that have been explored by experts. And so it became apparent that we should talk about those laws, talk about the foundational understanding that's been built about cities.

even as we experience the nuances of those cities that we visit. So yeah.

Reza (04:52.262)
Yeah. Yeah, so you came up with 20 laws for thriving and sustainable cities. And this is the episode where we're gonna introduce that concept and then we're gonna pick five of them that kind of group together and talk about those.

Seyi Fabode (05:00.471)
Yes.

Seyi Fabode (05:10.341)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what I'll do before we dive into those laws is just sort of touch on some of that research that we're referring to. So I'll touch on about five or six. One of them is a paper by Gentleman 2014. It's when it came out, titled Sustainable Urban Forms, Their Typologies, Models, and Concepts by Youssef Rafik.

Jabarin is, I hope, the correct pronunciation. Another really good, deep piece of research was from 2001, Urban Ecological Systems, which is linking terrestrial, ecological, physical, and socioeconomic components of metropolitan areas by Pickett and Cardenaso.

Grove and a few other people. And this one is one you and I have referenced. The research is by one of the gentlemen you and I have referenced a lot. And the title of this one is Growth, Innovation, Scaling, and the Pace of Life in Cities by Geoffrey West, Louis Bettencourt, and a few other authors, Jose Lobo being one of them. And I'll just touch on one more.

Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows factored greatly in this. It's a book and there's some research papers there as well. And the last one I'll touch on by Michael Baty is The Size, Scale and Shape of Cities. So this is not a comprehensive total list. It's just some of the about 20 or so pieces of research that we dove into, used some AI to help us.

sort of understand things. And then we landed on 20, but we'll start with five today and we will weave the rest into subsequent episodes. But these laws have applied even when we didn't explicitly state them in our previous conversations. So what's the first one Reza?

Reza (07:26.086)
Yeah.

Reza (07:30.054)
Yeah, so first one is urban scaling predicts city performance. And maybe before we jump into it, the theme that we're bringing into these five laws is about urban structure and systems. And we chose these because we were in New York City and Dallas respectively, and just experienced this so firsthand and so viscerally that

We thought this is a good set of five for us to talk about.

Seyi Fabode (08:03.877)
to start with. Yes, yes. So yes, and he just mentioned urban scaling predicts city performance. And the idea here being, as cities grow, they exhibit predictable scaling relationships across both the socioeconomic and infrastructural indicators of the city. And Geoffrey West's book and the research I just referenced is a phenomenal sort of

deep dive into what this means. And it just demonstrates his research and the one he did with Louis Bettencourt. It just demonstrates that there are some urban indicators that as a city scales with population size,

the requirements for infrastructure have a scaling ratio that they follow. And it happens at the macro scale. And as the city starts to grow, these scaling relationships break out. We won't dive into the actual numbers of the scales here, but what we do know is that when cities fail to account for

this law of scaling, which I would recommend scale, the book Scale by Geoffrey West for those who want to dive deeper into this, you will see inefficient resource allocation and missed opportunities for economic growth, period. And we're experiencing that in Austin. We've talked about this and some of the transportation issues we have in Austin, if you want to touch on that, Reza.

Reza (09:50.278)
Hmm. Yeah.

Reza (09:57.478)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that when we talked about in the transportation episode, we are picking roads as the answer to transportation problems and not considering other modes of transport to where we will limit scaling because of that choice. We just sort of will be...

less resilient and sustainable in that transportation element because we're not thinking about how this law could actually help with solving that problem.

Seyi Fabode (10:36.229)
Yeah, and you and I have talked about growing up in Lagos and in Mumbai. And just the, you see it too. You see just the mass movement of people that is almost unfortunately defined by socioeconomic class and

Reza (11:03.302)
Mm -hmm.

Seyi Fabode (11:05.125)
the inefficiencies and the consequent stagnation or even devolution of those cities because we're not factoring these things into how we build the infrastructure to drive just the growth of the city and the performance of the city. It's a law that, again, whether you know of or choose to acknowledge

plays out every day across cities, across the world. And it's a fantastic, I'd suggest you read the book or the research at the minimum. And it's closely tied to the second one, the second law, which is that urban density drives efficiency. And I can just touch on this a little bit and you can share just some of the consequences as well. So the idea here being that higher urban density

especially when thoughtfully planned, can lead to more efficient use of resources, which improves quality of life and reduces emissions in cities. And as I just said, it's tied directly to the first one as well.

Reza (12:18.854)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think we have examples of places we've traveled to, you know, Atlanta or Dallas or Houston, where the sprawl, you know, just that low densely sprawl just increases the infrastructure required. There's higher energy consumption, greater environmental impact, you know, it's so much waste. Now, I would also like

Seyi, one thing that I know that's a trade -off with density, there are other factors in there. In a city like Austin, you've got to have flood control. You can make a place very dense, but you've got to address areas that allow flood waters to dissipate. That sometimes gets forgotten. There are some people that want density but don't understand

Seyi Fabode (13:03.333)
Yes.

Reza (13:17.702)
the consequences of density. So it's a nuanced thing. So I agree that urban density drives efficiency, but urban density, and we will talk about in future episodes, along with green spaces and ways for the system of that city to operate given the climate that it is in.

Seyi Fabode (13:41.477)
Absolutely. And I'm so glad you're pointing this out because the thing about the laws is that you, if just strictly purely implemented on its own, you will absolutely experience the unintended consequences of not.

thinking about the system that is the city. So you're so correct. And the third law that we'll touch on actually plays that out really well. This need for understanding the law, but understanding the law in relation to the other laws and consequently policies, infrastructure, urban planning, coming as a result of

a thorough understanding of all these laws. So I'm so glad you pointed that out because the point here is not to have you as in our listeners or the people who are dear to and do the work of urban planning say, I should do X. You should do X in relation to Y, in relation to Z and the whole gamut. So yeah, really good point, Reza. The third one here, which

Reza (15:01.286)
Yes.

Seyi Fabode (15:07.397)
plays this out perfectly is that urban innovation drives progress. And the thinking being that cities are hubs of innovation. Richard Florida proved this out in his books, The Rise of the Creative Class, and some of his own research as well. And subsequent updates to The Rise of the Creative Class confirmed some of the underpinnings of this law. And the idea being that larger cities generate

more technological innovation, patterns and creative output. And it's interesting to frame it again from the trip to Dallas. We went to one of these art walks in a certain part of the city. And that was just one of a lot of things going on.

in the city that weekend. We could have gone to 25 other creative activities, art, shows, but what it highlights is that just the size of the city probably opens it up to more creative avenues and more opportunities to express your creativity.

Reza (16:35.078)
Yeah. Yeah.

Seyi Fabode (16:36.357)
is an innovation, but there's some downsides, as you were pointing out.

Reza (16:43.078)
Yeah. Before your downsides, I just want to sort of insert a couple of things here from my experience with this is, like you've mentioned before, Geoffrey West's book, Scale, there's a great chapter about why innovation happens in cities. And I experienced this on a firsthand. I have a meetup group that I co -organized with my friend Tulsi. It's ATX Product Happy Hour, and it's just getting

product managers to come together and we meet first and third Wednesday, Thursday of every month at a particular location. And it's a venue for us to meet and for product managers to come together. And the idea is to form community and form sparks and form connections because it's bumping into unfamiliar people, those loose connections that actually lead to innovation or ideas or

something new, something different. It's not the same routine that you're in, not the same people that you're talking to. It's bumping into someone that's doing something similar or something different that will spark that creative acts that come from being in cities. And that wouldn't exist if you didn't have a city. And because of that density, we can, because the city is large and because it has these people, they can come together. And every month it's not the same people. It's different people that show up.

Sometimes there's some regular, sometimes there are not. That change, that novelty that creates a space for that innovation to happen. So I just wanted to give that example as how it actually happens.

Seyi Fabode (18:23.877)
It's a fantastic one. It's a fantastic one. I heard a friend who actually also works in urban technology call it the opportunities that only happen because of serendipity.

Reza (18:42.022)
Yeah, I love that.

Seyi Fabode (18:44.325)
And he is a big fan of just the hubs and the communities that form in cities that then yield the output. And San Francisco has often been sort of touted as the hub of innovation in that sense. The downside, though, is when these opportunities are not framed from a

community perspective and it's all about innovation and growth and progress, you end up with a ton of inequality because some people end up participating and some don't. And you just increase the inequality in even the best cities that are creating the most innovation for the world. So

Reza (19:19.238)
Mmm.

Reza (19:23.174)
Hmm.

Seyi Fabode (19:42.661)
I, again, goes back to the point from law number two, which is that this law of urban innovation driving progress cannot stand by itself as the framing by which we just plow ahead and build our cities.

Reza (19:42.694)
Yeah.

Reza (20:02.246)
I think that's such a good point, Seyi because I was recently having coffee with someone who had moved from San Francisco, and you met her too, Jennifer. She moved from San Francisco, and she was contrasting her experience being in the Bay Area versus being in Austin. And it seems that in the Bay Area,

Seyi Fabode (20:26.277)
Yes.

Reza (20:29.83)
They're more gatekeepers. There's more a hierarchy. There's more like a status, like where do you work and what you do and who you know is more important. And when she came to Austin, she experienced something very different, which was a more open community that wasn't driven by sort of where you worked or what you did, but more by who you were as a person. And that allowed sort of more connection to happen.

Seyi Fabode (20:45.733)
Yes.

Seyi Fabode (20:53.797)
Yes, yes.

Reza (20:59.526)
at a human level. And I absolutely aspire with my product meetup to be totally welcoming. Anyone can come. You don't even have to be a product manager as long as you want to come and talk to product people. We welcome you. Because I want Austin to retain that generosity of spirit that it's always had. Like there was a reason why I decided to stay in Austin was it because it had this vibe of openness and generosity.

Seyi Fabode (21:01.765)
Absolutely.

Seyi Fabode (21:15.429)
That feels so.

Seyi Fabode (21:22.213)
Yes.

Seyi Fabode (21:27.557)
Yes.

Reza (21:28.614)
that I want, you know, that I hope to maintain. And that's what, you know, that's the point that you're bringing up is cities that keep that spirit are more sustainable. And like you've seen the downside in the Bay Area with the homelessness and the urban decay. And, you know, there's a lot of complexity as to why that's happened, but I'm sure that some of it is driven by the downside of only focusing on innovation and, you know, who's the best and where you worked and...

Seyi Fabode (21:31.813)
Yes.

Seyi Fabode (21:44.421)
Yes.

Reza (21:58.534)
you know, the gatekeepers of how that happened.

Seyi Fabode (22:01.893)
It's such a good point and it again ties to sort of the next law which is around regional cooperation enhancing sustainability of the cities. And I'll define it but then use San Francisco as the example again contrasting it with some of the areas next to it. So the idea here being sustainable cities cannot exist in isolation.

If you choose to be a city and the bounds of your city are the bounds of any cooperation that exists in your region, flouting this law, it will cause problems. And what you will need to do is coordinate with surrounding municipalities, areas, regions, communities for

a sustainable regional developmental future. And this, this, some of this comes from Willa's research, which just points out the regional nature of, of urban growth and sustainability. And San Francisco is such a good example of this, because good and bad example, if I may frame it correctly.

Because what you have surrounding regions that have not benefited as much from the innovation and growth focused approach to San Francisco.

Reza (23:46.31)
Hmm.

Seyi Fabode (23:47.909)
While they haven't grown as much as San Francisco, but some of these around San Francisco that have chosen to cooperate. So Oakland and some of the areas around there who are chosen to take a communal, regional approach to their growth are not experiencing the high levels of homelessness that San Francisco is experiencing. So they don't, they might not have as much innovation, but

Reza (23:58.374)
Mm -hmm.

Seyi Fabode (24:18.917)
together, they can better provide for and build their cities. Not saying it's perfect, but there's almost this clear delineation. It's why a lot of the people who are in tech in San Francisco don't even live in San Francisco. They choose to live in those areas that are more communal. The public schools are still trying to cater to

Reza (24:38.278)
Yeah.

Reza (24:43.046)
Yeah.

Seyi Fabode (24:46.821)
all socioeconomic classes. There's participation by the businesses in some of those areas because they know the region needs to thrive for their company to thrive. And it's just such a, it's the approach in a lot of the Nordic countries based on some research where it's not just

Reza (24:56.006)
Yeah.

Seyi Fabode (25:15.205)
a town in Denmark, granted it's not a big country, but it is regional. It is all regional. The electricity systems don't just serve this bound. They try to make it as regional as possible to ensure sustainability. So this is one of those laws that

with the more community has depreciated.

It's weakened cooperation and consequently we're not as resilient as communities as we used to be, in my opinion.

Reza (26:00.166)
Wow, yeah, seems like a really important one. And it makes a lot of sense because, you know, what's the saying? You can go fast by yourself, but you can go further together. And going further together because we're here for a long time is much more important than going fast by yourself.

Seyi Fabode (26:18.981)
Absolutely.

Seyi Fabode (26:29.253)
Mm -hmm.

Reza (26:30.054)
this type of cooperation stitches together cities and communities and how you use infrastructure and systems to allow that sustainable thriving to occur. I love this one. I almost feel like we need to talk about it more. This is one of those that has a lot of depth to it.

Seyi Fabode (26:47.461)
Yeah.

It'll come up.

Seyi Fabode (26:54.949)
It will come up. It will definitely come up. And then the fifth one and the last one we're going to touch on today is around mixed land use enhancing urban vitality. And the idea being that cities that have a mix of residential, commercial, parks and recreational spaces tend to be more vibrant, walkable and economically resilient.

This comes from a lot of the work and she's come up on this show, a lot of the work Jane Jacobs championed. And this was from her research in 1961, I believe, just highlighting the urban vitality that comes from mixed use. And yeah, please.

Reza (27:47.558)
Yeah. So I think this one makes a lot of sense. You know, you want that variety, you want that street life, you want the, you know, and I experienced that in New York City just really, you know, in a very, very clear way. I want to sort of contrast this. This law can be misunderstood. You said mixed land use enhances urban vitality. And you see a lot of

what are called mixed use developments that are glorified malls in my opinion. Or maybe that's a poor description. I don't know how best to describe it, but you see this mixed use development of like, you know, I'll put a building up and I'll put some shops below it and it's now mixed use and it isn't because it hasn't integrated with the neighborhood. It hasn't integrated with

Seyi Fabode (28:20.677)
Hahaha

Reza (28:46.31)
the area around it, it didn't come organically, it was just sort of planted over there and it feels out of place. And you see that a lot with gentrification, you'll see a mixed use development going into a particular area and it just doesn't fit. And I think you see that, Shai, in where you work, in the area that you're working, where your office is, is gentrifying at a pace that's astounding. And some of that

development seems organic and seems to be working, but some of it just doesn't. You'll see just something planted in the middle of nowhere and it just doesn't fit. So I think this one, there's nuance to, like I like how you call this law mixed land use, enhances urban vitality and vitality and land use being really key and stitching together something that's bigger than just a mixed use development.

Seyi Fabode (29:42.949)
I cannot add anything that is even going to remotely improve on how awesome that point is, Reza. I experience it when I go to the office and we've had a conversation about it and you're correct. Again, why I really like these laws is the specificity of the law, but the recognition of the fact that

It is a more encompassing systemic take. And this one perfectly describes that. Yes. Yes.

Reza (30:24.39)
Yeah, boy, this is a fun episode, Seyi. I had a blast talking about these. This has been such a fun journey to start these conversations and then start paying attention to the world and the cities around us. And I love that we've distilled them down into these 20 laws and we're gonna bring this lens into each episode.

Seyi Fabode (30:27.429)
It's...

Reza (30:53.062)
And so, like you said at the start, not just explore the history and the current and the future, but apply this law and see where it's working and where it's not working and how that law informs where we are going in the future. So, yeah, I'm just, I'm so excited. This is a fun episode and I can't wait to talk more about this in future episodes.

Seyi Fabode (31:11.301)
Me too.

Seyi Fabode (31:18.245)
Yes, yes. And what we'll do for our listeners is also share in text form the rest of the laws and put together an article essentially that expounds on these five and the 15 that we've gleaned from all these other articles and research so that it's grounded in expertise from people who have done this work. And you and I are experts in our own right.

And now we're adding just the lens as observers, curious observers of the cities around us and the experts that have, we're standing on the shoulders of giants in city understanding. So it's pretty exciting stuff. Yeah.

Reza (32:08.046)
Yeah. Yeah. So Seyi, this brings us to the favorite part of our episode, which is Mailbag. And I think you have a great one this week.

Seyi Fabode (32:15.909)
Yes.

I do, I do. So a fantastic fantastic of mine, which we've decided we'll bring onto the show, she's done a ton of great work in farming and just the urban spaces. And she's done it at the highest levels as well. Kelly Kellee sent us a fantastic mail bag where she says thank you for the show.

which we deeply appreciate, but we thank her for listening and being so thoughtful about her response. And she talks about the storytelling. The cities are stories, living stories. So we try to weave that into our episode. And one of the two things she pointed out that I want to touch on and we'll dive into when we bring her on, she talked about life cycle analysis for

nuclear. This comes from the Future of Electricity or Energy episode that we touched on. She's not worried about a three mile island type situation where the nuclear plant causes destruction around the region. She's more worried about nuclear waste. What is the latest thinking on this? And the same with

Reza (33:34.822)
Mm.

Seyi Fabode (33:39.621)
recycling of batteries and wind turbines and the sourcing of the rare earth metals. And for anyone who knows Kellee, she is ahead of most in thinking about this. So that she's pulled it out means we have to have her on to help explore, explore that future state. She's also super interested in the design questions around every topic we've talked about.

Reza (33:52.198)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Seyi Fabode (34:09.189)
What are we designing in our cities? It's the layout, the positioning, and the placement of things. Our design choices is her take. And that is true. And we're either improving or perpetuating some things by the design choices we make in our cities. And again, if you know Kellee, this is.

Reza (34:21.67)
Mm. Hmm.

Seyi Fabode (34:36.037)
And so, Kellee thank you. It's a fantastic mail bag from you.

Reza (34:55.014)
Yes.

Reza (34:58.502)
Yeah. Thank you, Kellee. Yeah, it was, you know, you sent it to me, Seyi, and I read it and I was like, wow, this is a really thoughtful listener. And you and I went back and forth and we're like, we got to have her on the show. You know? No choice here. So, yeah, I look forward to having her on. Yeah, I'm excited about that. I'm excited about, you know, everything we've talked about today.

Seyi Fabode (35:10.245)
No choice. Yeah. Yeah.

Reza (35:26.054)
the laws, bringing that into our show. I'm excited about doing our first show with a guest and how that brings in an expert and someone that is thoughtfully thinking about the future and actually working on it. So yeah, as always, thank you everyone. Keep those mailbags coming. Keep helping us explore and learn with you.

Seyi Fabode (35:31.333)
Yes.

Reza (35:54.118)
Obviously share and subscribe, like and review and take a minute to share it with a friend. Share this episode with a friend. Seyi, it's been a great episode. Thank you.

Seyi Fabode (36:06.981)
Thank you. Thanks so much. It's been fantastic.
Reza (36:17.414)
Yeah. What?

Reza (36:25.414)
Yeah. Yeah, we're on our way. Well, we're having so much fun doing this, so I don't, like, I just wanna keep doing it.

Reza (36:36.454)
Yes.

Reza (36:48.006)
Alright, bye everyone.

Seyi Fabode (36:49.893)
Bye.