Flareheads Podcast
Aug 11, 2022
A Main Street Conversation with Punta Gorda Councilman Jaha Cummings
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A great conversation with Punta Gorda Councilman Jaha Cummings that took place at the Preservation on Main Street Conference in Deland, Florida, on July 28, 2022.
More episodes from Flareheads Podcast
Jan 24, 2023
Real and Perceived Safety in Downtowns and Beyond - The SafeDesign Approach Part 1
In this episode, we talk with Ken Stapleton of Ken Stapleton and Associates and the SafeDesign Institute about addressing real and perceived safety issues in our downtowns and other areas of our communities. We talk about the chapter on safety that he contributed to the book "Design Downtown for Women and the Men Will Follow."
Topics include the "She-conomy", and how places must be "comfortable enough" and "safe enough."
How safety is not just about crime statistics and police presence, but between people there are varying safety thresholds.
What really are "community policing innovations?" They often just end up being more police, but it is much more than that.
How measurement and tracking of perception is critical and rarely done, and how once crime and safety are being addressed from a policing perspective, there has to be a shift to talking about perceptions which will linger long after the actual problem has been addressed.
We also talk about the physical environment and what makes a place feel safe.
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Jan 7, 2023
What's Relevant for Cities at the Consumer Electronic Show (days 1 and 2)
Ken Stapleton and Kevin Crowder follow the action and new concepts showing up at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) to see what in there might be relevant for cities. And there was alot!
Flying Cars | Briefcase Electric Bikes | Mobility Automation | Practical Tech | No More Cables | Electric Hydrofoil Boats | Chip Manufacturing | Freelancers and Hybrid Work (what's next?) | Remote Drones? Gaming and Visualization | |aper Tablets. Foldable Tech - Wayfinding? City Operations? Advertising Revenue?
Goggleless 3D for an enhanced downtown user experience!
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Jan 2, 2023
Deceptive Density Part 2 of 3 with Ken Stapleton
In part two of our conversation on density and related matters, Ken and I pick up where we left off and Ken asked if we knew of any examples where downtowns thrive without density around them. In this episode we will talk about a couple of examples that I thought of. We start with a relevant example on Miami Beach, then go on into how design in important to business district success, as are bad uses and regulations. We touch on why business districts near wealthier neighborhoods can be less vibrant than ones near more modest areas. We also touch on the impact that leadership, engineering and regulatory problems can have on downtown vibrancy and keep us from building nicer places. We also talk about how some people can identify things they love about other places but may not realize that what makes those places have the things they love are things they would oppose in their own hometowns. We talk also about how important density can be to economic growth, but how density is not scale, and does not even have to mean residents and housing at all, and how misunderstanding and misleading have falsely made density a bad word.
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