Lovable Places & People Habitats w/ Kaid Benfield

In this episode, I reconnect with Kaid Benfield, a veteran urbanism professional and published author who tirelessly advocates for the creation and celebration of places that people love. 

From Kaid's professional bio:

Kaid Benfield is one of the country’s most steadfast voices for making cities, towns, and neighborhoods work better for both people and the environment.  Based in Washington, DC, he serves as senior counsel at PlaceMakers LLC, a city and town planning consultancy working across the United States and Canada. 

Before joining PlaceMakers in 2015, Kaid worked for over 30 years as a senior attorney and program director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, where he founded and led the organization’s sustainable communities program and, before that, managed the litigation of some of the organization’s most important legal cases.  A prolific public speaker and writer, Kaid’s large portfolio of publications spans several books and over a thousand articles for such publications as The Atlantic, HuffPost, CityLab, PlaceShakers and Newsmakers, and numerous other websites and academic journals. 

Kaid was voted one of "the 100 most influential urbanists" worldwide on the prominent city planning website, Planetizen.com, and previously was named one of "the most influential people in sustainable planning and development" by the Partnership for Sustainable Communities and "one of the top 100 city innovators worldwide" by the website Future Cities.  His latest book is People Habitat: 25 Ways to Think About Greener, Healthier Cities, distributed by Island Press.

During his tenure at NRDC, Kaid was a co-founder of Smart Growth America, a leading nonprofit organization and nationwide coalition working on revitalizing cities, building better neighborhoods for all people, and stopping the spread of suburban sprawl.  He also co-founded LEED for Neighborhood Development, a national process for defining and certifying smart, environmentally sound land development under the auspices of the US Green Building Council.  In addition, Kaid is an adjunct professor at the George Washington University School of Law, where he has taught law, policy, and best practices for sustainable communities.  

An avid cyclist, ardent music buff, and enthusiastic sports fan, Kaid grew up in Asheville, North Carolina, and holds degrees from Emory University and Georgetown University Law Center.  He lives with his wife Sharon in a walkable DC neighborhood

In this episode, John and Kaid talk about the impact and importance of getting out of our cars to experience and appreciate our communities in a much more intimate and meaningful manner. They also dive into Kaid's passion for cycling, strategies for making a difference locally, and the vital necessity of engaging people of color in the discussions and planning efforts in the transformations of their communities. 

Additional & Helpful Links:

Active Towns Podcast Episode w/ Nicole DeBoom

Active Towns Podcast Episode w/ Roshun Austin

Active Towns Podcast Episode w/ Charles Brown

WalkScore

TransitScore

Richard Louv Books on Nature and Nature Deficit

Build Maine 2020 Program

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Credits:

All video and audio production by John Simmerman

Music:

Marshall Co by Sander Kalmeijer, Dude by Bruce Zimmerman, and Johnny and the Pale Rider by Paul Mitchell Beebe via Storyblocks.com

Resources used during the production of this episode:

- My awesome recording platform is Ecamm

- Adobe Creative Cloud Suite

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Background:

Hi Everyone, my name is John Simmerman.

I’m a health promotion professional with over 30 years of experience and my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization of how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.

In 2012 I launched the non-profit Advocates for Healthy Communities as an effort to help promote and create healthy, active places.

Since that time, I've been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be, in order to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a "Culture of Activity" for "All Ages & Abilities."

My Active Towns suite of channels feature my original video and audio content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.

Thanks for tuning in; I hope you have found this content helpful.

Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2020

Advocates for Healthy Communities, Inc. is a nonprofit 501c3 organization (EIN 45-3802508) dedicated to helping communities create a Culture of Activity. To donate, click here.

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