Episode 17 - Walking some special miles with Guest Jeff Speck, city planner and urban designer

A big part of what makes a house a home is a sense of place.  High performance is as much about neighborhood as it is structure. You will get a kick out of hearing two building science geeks, Jake and Pete, veering off in this episode to talk context with Jeff Speck, who literally wrote the book(s) on walkable neighborhoods, towns, and cities.

 Jeff Speck offers three reasons why we need walkable places to live: economic, human health, and the health of the planet. Jeff is smart, funny, and wide open for a rambling conversation with Jake and Pete.

 Some inspiring quotes from Jeff to pull you into this episode:

 “The typical household makes 13 one-way trips per day. Now that means that someone isn’t getting home at night!”

 “The automobile should be an instrument of freedom, not a prosthetic device.”

 “Transportation systems beget settlement patterns.”

 “The automobile was the first means of transportation that was not nodal or linear.”

 “Transportation systems beget settlement patterns and once you have a good settlement pattern you can have a better transportation system.”

 “Walk Score works despite the algorithm being crap.”