John Anderson was one of the first people I got to know when I was a young pup architect trying to get involved with New Urbanism. I did my first design charrette with John and others in 1999, in Truckee, CA. We subsequently worked together many times over the years, in both planning and architecture work. I’ve seen John rise to being a minor celebrity in this world, and see him inspire countless others to try your hand in this strange professional (if you can call it that) endeavor.

We’ve agreed, disagreed and debated a lot over the years. We continue to do so. But something about our shared Midwestern background has kept us united in looking for practical approaches to better communities and better buildings.

John and I cover a lot of ground in this, from his most unusual journey to the work he does, to many hard lessons learned along the way, and how to help younger people get involved with small-scale, incremental development. John was a co-founder of Incremental Development Alliance, and we talk about how that came to be.

John is best found on Facebook these days, and especially his fantastic group called Neighborhood Development. We talk a bit about this blog post I wrote years ago, calling for 10,000 new developers. And though we didn’t mention it, here’s John’s own blog.

Find more content on The Messy City on Kevin’s Substack page.

Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If you’d like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.

Intro: “Why Be Friends”

Outro: “Fairweather Friend”