Ep. 7 Jeffery Tompkins - City Planner and Founder of Proformus
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In 2020, people had too much time. I am no exception to this. I was unemployed, stuck inside, and playing World of Warcraft until the sun came up (frankly, not that different from when I was 14).
I was also depressed, as many people were. Not to state the obvious, but part of this depression came from the pandemic and being physically disconnected from people. The other part came from living in West Lafayette, Indiana. It was not until I saw this video by Not Just Bikes that I truly understood why, and no, it wasn’t because I attended IU Bloomington.
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Episode Summary
Episode Transcript
I implore you to take a moment to look into Not Just Bikes or the organization mentioned in the video, Strong Towns, if you're not familiar with them. These two entities are core to my journey of forming a value system of what I think things should be done, but how things need to be done to sustain our cities.
Did you know you can reply to this email, and it will come straight to me? I guarantee I’ll respond, and I’d love to hear from you.
Third Space Indy is supported by Arrows.
Important links and mentions
Jeffery Tompkins
Books and Places, Mentions
Food and Tourism
Production learnings from the episode
This episode is the first where I used a separate microphone for myself and the guest. I think it turned out really well.
We also recorded outdoors. I love the natural sounds that come from the outdoors, and they are not overpowering like I thought they might be. Even the bus driving by is not as loud as it seemed at the moment. The video could use some work, but I think that is a constant battle I fight. No one watches the YouTube videos yet anyway 😂.
Lastly, as a sneak peek, here is a no logo/branding direction I’ve been thinking about. It’s possible that by the time you read this, I’ll already be using it or it will have changed, but I’d love to hear your thoughts.
To Build a Strong Town
Since seeing the video mentioned above, my desire to live in a walkable city has only deepened. If I change domiciles, then there are two minimum requirements: I must be able to walk to a (non-Starbucks) coffee shop and at least one restaurant.
When I leave the house with Anna in a car, I will most assuredly groan when we encounter even the slightest traffic slowdown. If we live in a house on foot, I will certainly risk my life and stare down a car while crossing the street. I will also likely be fully within my rights to cross in our archaic pedestrian laws.
This is just the surface, and I have been looking for ways to do better advocacy — I should have joined a Strong Towns chapter long ago, but that’s beside the point — Third Space Indy will likely become my propaganda machine for a more walkable, liveable environment. This is something Indianapolis desperately needs for a variety of reasons, not least of which starts with potholes.
Lane Miles and You
Before moving to Indianapolis, I had never seen potholes as much of an issue. I have also, apparently, always lived in places with adequate road funding. Indianapolis is both a place where potholes are an issue and where road funding is in dire straits. I do not think the roads need more funding; I think we need to reconsider what it means to fund the roads at all.
Potholes, especially in Indiana, represent something more. A never-ending cycle of quite literally washing money away with the cycle of rain, snow, ice, and what other potential ephemeral way water might present itself.
Conservatives would have you believe they are fiscally smart; they do this by cutting state funding and passing the burden of fixing your car onto you when you inevitably hit one of these money pits. Democrats, who run Indianapolis, would have you believe they are powerless to end the problem, pushing the blame to the state government. That only tells part of the story. And both of these parties refuse to look the problem in the eye — a deeply car-focused infrastructure and urban sprawl that is unsustainable both financially and ecologically.
Indianapolis needs to perform a combination of tasks, and the outcome will be a resilient city, a more connected community, and a healthier environment.
Reduce lane miles
This is effectively the distance of roads multiplied by the number of lanes (Indianapolis has many four and six-lane roads)
Increase the availability of transit
Invest in denser developments
There is near-universal agreement among people who are not strip mall developers that this is the way forward. And I was happy to hear this echoed by Jeffery in our conversation on Third Space Indy. I hope you will enjoy listening.
Episode Summary
Emergent Urbanism and Community Building with Jeffrey Tompkins
In this episode of Third Space Indy, host Michael Zarick speaks with Jeffrey Tompkins, an urban planner from Indianapolis. They discuss the concept of emergent urbanism, the historical development of cities, and the balance between policy-driven planning and organic growth. Jeffrey shares his professional journey, his vision for Indianapolis, and insights into urban design. The conversation also touches on community engagement, the challenges of city planning, and the importance of maintaining a balance between bureaucracy and natural urban development. They highlight local spots like Mass Ave, the Athenaeum, and Coat Check Coffee, underscoring the vibrant community and potential for growth in Indianapolis.
00:00 Introduction to Emergent Urbanism
01:00 Meet Jeffrey Tompkins: Urban Planner Extraordinaire
02:03 Jeffrey's Journey into Urban Planning
05:31 Challenges and Opportunities in Urban Design
09:22 The Success and Evolution of Mass Ave
12:35 Balancing Bureaucracy and Urban Growth
16:13 The Importance of Density and Infrastructure
21:06 Revitalizing Communities: Small Actions, Big Impact
25:29 The Visual Design of Cities
32:37 Upcoming Adventures and Personal Insights
33:31 Rainforest Adventure Plans
33:38 Travel Logistics and Concerns
35:02 Pacers Playoff Predictions
35:53 The Power of Sports in Community Building
40:45 Exploring Local Hangouts
41:10 Neighborhood History and Trivia
42:52 Favorite Local Spots
49:05 Urban Planning and Pedestrian Infrastructure
53:45 Final Thoughts and Reflections
Episode Transcript
Season 2 Ep. 1 Jeffery Tompkins
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[00:00:00] Jeffery Tompkins: We create these systems in place that only allow the outputs that the systems are built for rather than what I like to call emergent urbanism. And the idea that naturally we can develop these great places if you just get out of the way. Thousands of years before urban planning was a profession.
We had cities. I'm not one to put myself out of a job, but I think it is important to think about how we've self organized over millennia and developed these great, amazing places without a profession that's in charge of it.
[00:00:44] Michael Zarick: Hello, my name is Michael Zarick Welcome to Third Space, maybe in this podcast we talk about about community, community building, and the people who are actively doing doing that. That. One day I'll get a fully fleshed out intro.
[00:00:58] Jeffery Tompkins: I thought that was good. I thought that was good.
[00:01:00] Michael Zarick: But today I'm talking to Jeffrey Tompkins. He is, uh, Jeffrey Tompkins is a a local Indianapolis urban planner. He's really into sort of lived space. I told him that if I could snap my fingers in this moment and and trade places with anyone, it would be him. And and he told me that was a mistake.
[00:01:18] Jeffery Tompkins: Don't do it.
[00:01:20] Michael Zarick: But, uh, I'm really interested to talk to him about his work as an urban planner, his sort of dreams for Indianapolis. Uh, and things like so Hello Jeffrey. How are you doing,
[00:01:30] Jeffery Tompkins: Michael? Thanks for having me. I'm great.
[00:01:32] Michael Zarick: Oh, excellent. I I like the, I like the idea of being, uh. Here on Mass Ave with you. Uh, yeah,
I appreciate that.
[00:01:39] Jeffery Tompkins: I wish I could take credit for it. We took forever to find a spot. I guess what we realized is that there needs to be more pocket parks along the ave. Yes, definitely. But I will say your suggestion, look at this background. I mean, we have kind of nature, you have the field notes. This is perfect.
As long as we don't have an ambulance.
[00:01:58] Michael Zarick: Yeah. I mean, even the, the cars may be disruptive, but I think We'll, we'll manage. Um, so why don't you tell me a little bit about your work and and just yourself, just like what, what's going on on your day to day?
[00:02:13] Jeffery Tompkins: Well, one, I'm a Virgo. I like long walks on the beach and, um, my favorite song is Read My Mind By The Killers.
Oh.
But if you're more interested in my professional career, I guess I came to Urban Planning in a weird roundabout way. I was sort of a factotum and someone who does so many different jobs. I, at one point worked at a flower delivery shop and I drove a van and and handed flowers to folks. I've been the GM of an A Barcade.
I'm originally from Northwest Indiana, which I guess sets the tone for a lot of this because it's an area of the country that for much of many sentiment has been left behind and people left to figure out what, what to do with themselves after the indu deal, industrialization and the steel mills left.
So I came to Indianapolis by way of what was then known as I-U-P-U-I, iu Indy, iu, whatever it's called now.
[00:03:18] Michael Zarick: I call it OOEY - POOEY.
[00:03:19] Jeffery Tompkins: Ey Puy,
[00:03:20] Michael Zarick: it's no longer that.
Uh,
I think it's just, it's just IU Indy and then Purdue Indy They've separated
[00:03:24] Jeffery Tompkins: Yeah, they divorced. Yeah, they divorced. And it's my fa. Like, one of my favorite things is that you'll see like an IU Indianapolis sign, which is brand new next to like the Purdue sign, and it says the same exact thing, and they're right next to each other.
And I'm thinking of all the wasted resources. I should not say that, but yeah, the sign companies are very happy. The sign companies are very happy. They're like, yes, I get to double order and just change the colors a little bit. But I was, yeah, I came down to, uh, ooey pooey and I studied policy at IUPUI or whatever we wanna call it, and I came to planning from more of a policy angle.
I didn't really do much with a lot of it until I got older and realized that there was more creativity I wanted to see in the built environment. And so I ended up going back to school later at Ball State. I studied architecture, I studied real estate development at Ball State's. Wonderful College of architecture and planning.
And I, I studied planning as well and got really immersed in all these different facets of what the built environment. Can be from a design angle. So combining policy, combining design. I try to be a Swiss Army knife of urban planning, and not just someone who, who sketches things but knows how to implement those.
That's, that's I guess, a roundabout way to say, yeah.
[00:04:42] Michael Zarick: Yeah, definitely. Who,
What are the firms you're working for? Now you have your own, and then also you work your a national?
[00:04:48] Jeffery Tompkins: So right now I work for Meticulous Design and Architecture as a design director. I've worked in the past, under my own capacity, and I'm actually starting another company.
[00:05:02] Michael Zarick: No, oh, oh, let's go.
[00:05:03] Jeffery Tompkins: Yeah. This is actually like the drop of it. I, I, yeah. I'm Are you allowed to, I, i, I don't know if I'm, if I'm wanting to talk about this yet, but you don't no, no, no, no, no. It's, it's, it's just, it's something's in the works and I'm sure you'll learn about it before others will. Amazing. Yeah. I might text you about it.
[00:05:21] Michael Zarick: Oh,
cool.
[00:05:21] Jeffery Tompkins: Um, meet me at the pocket park.
[00:05:24] Michael Zarick: The the pocket park planner. Yeah. Cooperative is
[00:05:27] Jeffery Tompkins: Ooh. Oh, be careful.
[00:05:29] Michael Zarick: Yeah. That's too many words..
[00:05:31] Jeffery Tompkins: Yeah.
[00:05:31] Michael Zarick: Um, so what about, um, so you said you were drawn to this idea that we could be be better in design our space. Did you share a bit about what you believe that means?
[00:05:46] Jeffery Tompkins: Yeah, it's a good question. I think so much of our understanding of what the built environment can be comes from top down mechanisms, and even the bureaucratic procedures and, and processes that we put upon design in this country and other places is very procedural and bureaucratic.
And so we create these systems in place that only allow the outputs that the systems are built for rather than what I like to call emergent urbanism. And the idea that naturally we can develop these great places if you just get out of the way. And what I mean by that is, if you look thousands of years before urban planning was a profession.
We had cities. How? if the field's so necessary. And I'm not one to put myself out of a job, but I think it is important to think about how we've self organized over millennia and developed these great, amazing places and wonderful joyous experiences for others without a profession that's in charge of it.
[00:07:00] Michael Zarick: Yeah. Almost like a these were, they they were naturally developed.
Yeah.
[00:07:04] Jeffery Tompkins: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:07:04] Michael Zarick: Hey, i, uh, you know, I don't have an exact example. It's like the reason people want to live by a coffee shop in a bakery is because historically that's just where people wanted to live coffee shop. In the bakery.
[00:07:17] Jeffery Tompkins: It's, it's like when you see some birds in the air.
mm-hmm.
You notice they're not just like flying alone.
They, they, they get into a V together and they migrate together. There is no book, there is no bureaucracy telling the birds, Hey birds, you gotta do this.
Mm-hmm.
Look at, look at how the proclivity of bees and how they're able to micromanage themselves in this really radically chaotic and challenging system to create honey and to pollinate.
And so if, if our cities, I like the bus going by. He is like, yeah,
[00:07:54] Michael Zarick: if something's particularly loud,
I think we should pause just half a second, but keep going.
[00:07:59] Jeffery Tompkins: maybe I got like, the bus can be like my little like, what do they call that when you're like in a TV show and you say something and they like, bleep. Is it bleeping? It's bleeping. Wow.
[00:08:07] JefferyTompkins: Yeah.
[00:08:08] Jeffery Tompkins: Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Bleeping. bus bleep, a bus bleep. Yeah. We can add that to our pocket park Collaborative. But the cities are naturally chaotic.
And so we try to temper them with all these like regulations like zoning and whatnot and, and, and dial it in. And for much to the extent of the 20th century, we thought that we could do this with every field. I don't think cities are like that. So to answer your question, there's gotta be a balance. And that's where I see an opportunity for people that, not even necessarily planners, but for anyone in or out of the design field, to find a balance in their own neighborhood, their own block, their own parcel, and say, what are the opportunities for creating better places?
'cause you don't need an education to know how to do that. You don't need an education to know that the street should be safe for children. You don't need an education to know that it should be okay to walk with a stroller or walker down the sidewalk. So I think that what brought me here is a big part is challenging.
The status quo. That's not working for so many people. I, I, I think that's, I think that's part of it.
[00:09:16] Michael Zarick: Are
[00:09:16] Jeffery Tompkins: there, um, uh,
[00:09:19] Michael Zarick: so we're sitting on Massachusetts Avenue.
[00:09:22] Jeffery Tompkins: Yeah. Mass Avenue. This is like,
[00:09:24] Michael Zarick: in, someone will, uh, find this contentious probably, but this is like the premier street in Indianapolis. There's nightlife, there's uh, sort of city living like the apartments, there's places to work.
Sort of that conglomeration. Do you think that this sort of fits the bill? Um, does it have more to go or are there other places in Indianapolis that you think?
are doing better than this?
[00:09:52] Jeffery Tompkins: That's a good question. I think Mass Ave is so successful because it's allowed itself to reinvent over time. It also has to, its advantage. Some of the largest preservation of the, what we used to build and allow to get built of any of the four diagonals of the original Alexander Ralston plan of Indianapolis in 1821.
If you look at our other cultural districts in the city, Fountain Fletcher, Indiana Avenue, Broad Ripple, besides Broad Ripple, they're all on one of the diagonals. And so there's something in our mind that's very unique about a terminated axis where we see a diagonal meet an orthogonal 90 degree angle, and it's like, oh, there's, there's a terminated vista.
Like that's, that's gotta be something important there. So that's why like when you're walking down Virginia and Fountain Square, you're drawn to those billboards, you're drawn to that fountain, just as same as you're walking down Mass Ave. There's something peculiar about it. So I think that one going in mass AVEs advantage is the fact that an urban plant at some point.
Allowed it to be peculiar, but secondly, we didn't allow so much of it to get destroyed. If you look at the buildings around us, a lot of them are a vestige of an era. Before zoning, before we had a land use plan, if you look at the other diagonals in places in, in historic districts in Indianapolis, the reason why their districts now that are protected is because we destroyed so much of them and allowed so much of 'em to get destroyed.
[00:11:24] JefferyTompkins: destroy.
[00:11:25] Jeffery Tompkins: I think that mass staff has an advantage, but just like anywhere it has, its, it has its challenges as well. And Jane Jacobs talks a lot about in The Death and Life of Great American Cities about the failure of success and when, when a place gets successful,
There be, there becomes its own set of challenges that other, other places don't have.
Broad Ripple's facing this with some of the, this concerns around public safety. And street lighting and infrastructure and density and the, the same probably in in Fountain Fletcher as well. But I think why Mass Ave is, is the premier cultural district is because we've allowed it to succeed and reinvent itself.
And perhaps that's a lesson to the other cultural districts. We cannot, in case the city and ember, we have to let it grow and continue to be fluid and flexible so it can meet that next generation. And I think because Mass Ave has allowed itself to do that with things like Bottleworks and the, the allyship it's had around certain communities, it's allowed itself to reinvent itself in a good way.
[00:12:34] Michael Zarick: Yeah. You, you wrote an article recently, it was titled, If you want to Build something, hire a lawyer.
[00:12:40] Jeffery Tompkins: Oh God,
That's true.
[00:12:42] Michael Zarick: I just thought that, uh, was a very poignant piece of like, we, you have to you have to wade it through so much to get to where people already want. The, these things, but the, there is so much red tape and so many barriers in your way of achieving whatever that thing is that it becomes
uh, impossible, um, or if not impossible, draining to the point of both monetarily and energy wise like that it's just, it maybe ends up not happening.
[00:13:13] Jeffery Tompkins: I mean, yeah, and that's not any discredit on the City of Indianapolis in particular, but this is not idiosyncratic to Indiana or the Midwest. This is a nationwide, even maybe western worldwide phenomenon where we allow legalese and and bureaucracy to get in the way of dynamic urban places. And it gets back to that balance I alluded to a bit earlier, if we want that flock of birds to merge together, if we want the bees to create honey, you have to let them do what they do.
I think when we stopped letting places be places, we, we stopped getting the mass AVEs. We stopped getting the Fountain Fletchers.
I think a big part of making a place go,
Mm-hmm.
[00:14:03] Michael Zarick: I've seen you use that term before,
[00:14:04] Jeffery Tompkins: is,
[00:14:05] Michael Zarick: Don't you have a book?
[00:14:05] Jeffery Tompkins: Yeah.
I'm writing, eh, you know, it's, once you tell somebody something, you gotta like finish it. So it's like, yeah, let's just, let's in. But maybe, um, and there's, there's a white paper coming out that's like a good portion of some of the book that's due to be released here in a little bit, which.
I'm not going to to self-promote, but it's, it's part of the self, it's, it's part of that, that part of that idea of making a place go means getting out of its way. And I shouldn't need a lawyer to know what to build on my property. And the city should stand by. And this isn't just, this isn't a target on Indianapolis.
This could be about Chicago. This could be about Cinci, this could be about New York City or Los Angeles, could be about anywhere. You need to align with your priorities. You say you care about, if you care about quality of life initiatives, if you care about balancing a budget, if you care about childcare and making safe streets for people, you need to have the things that help sustain those things.
And here, particularly in Indianapolis, one of our quality of life issues is that we don't have enough money to take care of our streets.
Mm-hmm.
And that affects everybody. Whether or not you're getting a pothole every year. Like my,
[00:15:18] Michael Zarick: I'm glad you brought this up. Is this something I, uh, complain about? Regularly.
[00:15:22] Jeffery Tompkins: I, I'm sure I, so like, let me ask you a question. What's your, like, le everyone in Indy has this, what's your, you have a notorious piece of roadway. You're like, I should not be able to, I should not drive on this thing.
[00:15:37] Michael Zarick: Dude, actually, like two months ago it was my own neighborhood street. Like there was this massive pothole.. That I was like, I'm just gonna go the other way around it. Um, but it's funny that you say that. I have noticed that, um, Meridian Street up towards where I live um, in Broad Ripple or Meridian Kessler, that sort of area,
Um. Towards the more north you go, even in those sort of very nice neighborhoods, just really struggling to like keep that together.
Um, and I am familiar with the reason why it's that way, but I'm interested to hear your perspective. On that.
[00:16:13] Jeffery Tompkins: We have too many lane miles.
[00:16:15] Michael Zarick: What does that mean for the, for the people people who don't,
[00:16:20] Jeffery Tompkins: So the, the state of Indiana and when they, when they go to allocate road funding, they do it by lane miles, not total volume.
Mm-hmm.
So you could have a one, one, let's just use one mile segment of roadway Kokomo and it's got a lane in each direction.
So that's just one mile of roadway. Now you take one mile of Washington Street on the near east side, it's got four total lanes. The state funding takes those four lanes and treats it the same as the two lanes in Kokomo,
[00:16:53] Michael Zarick: Which which means you're only getting half the distance,
[00:16:55] Jeffery Tompkins: well, you're getting half the funding essentially of what you're, so it's not by the volume, it's by the lane miles.
So they're, they're pretty much the same. And so when you have a set of infrastructure like Indianapolis does, we've allowed ourselves to sprawl the policies like UNIGOV in 1970, essentially. Saved the city to absorb the suburbs, but then we had to absorb the suburbs, long-term maintenance in terms of roadway infrastructure.
There was a long-term sidewalk and streetlight moratorium, so we didn't invest in other forms of mobility. The only way to get around was and safely was a car. So we had these large arterials like Emerson, Washington, Southeastern Shade Land, you name it, Kessler. And not only are they overbuilt for the capacity that we need, but we're not getting funded for the capacity they are right now.
Mm-hmm.
So there's a couple ways to go about this and why the problem is so acute in Indianapolis is we've allowed ourselves to have such low density that doesn't support those roadways, and it's a losing bargain and it will continue to go on until we either adjust the the lane miles or we adjust the property taxes that we can generate to offset the cost to maintain those or.
[00:18:12] Michael Zarick: Or, and selfishly offer the alternative to driving that allows you to,
[00:18:18] Jeffery Tompkins: ideally you do all of 'em.
[00:18:20] Michael Zarick: Well, ideally we do all of them. Them.
[00:18:22] Jeffery Tompkins: Ideally. And there's an argument too with planners and, and policy makers that you need a certain level of density to support transit. And it's one of those like chicken and the egg things where if you build transit, they will come and there will have, there'll be more density.
And then there's transit planters, like, you know, um, there's this guy, Jarret Walker who did Indygo's new new grid system redesign in 2019 or so, and they say, no, you need a certain level of density to have bus service like that. So if you look at what some transit planners classify as the necessary threshold for rail transit, it's about 10,000 people per square mile.
You don't, don't have, there's only one, one census track in Indianapolis that has that, and we're in it right now ,
[00:19:08] Michael Zarick: In Mass Ave?,
[00:19:09] Jeffery Tompkins: Uh, the Chatham March, Mass Ave Locker B District. Yeah.
Okay.
So the mass app district average sort
[00:19:15] Michael Zarick: size
[00:19:16] Jeffery Tompkins: for rail transit or for the square, uh, density per square mile.
[00:19:19] Michael Zarick: per square mile.
[00:19:20] Jeffery Tompkins: I mean, we're less than 3000 per square mile.
It's low. Yeah, it's, it's low. And that's, that's not even the city as a whole. I'm, I'm so that if you look at some of our peer cities
Milwaukee, very, very dense in, its, its urban core. I mean, you're upwards of 10,000 per square mile in, in many census tracks. Chicago. It, it, it lights up obviously, but therefore they're able to, to have all these different services and, and infrastructure that's funded.
We have a long way to go, but I think the city's on the right track in making some decisions that enables some of those, those densification procedures to happen. It's just. A matter of getting out of our own way. Sometimes. Not all the density has to be downtown. Yeah.
[00:20:06] Michael Zarick: Let the, let the city go.
as
[00:20:08] Jeffery Tompkins: Yeah. Other words
[00:20:08] Michael Zarick: let, I'm
[00:20:09] Jeffery Tompkins: make let let the place go.
Yeah. Let the place go. Let the place go. Yeah.
[00:20:12] Michael Zarick: you
had a metaphor on your website that I really that I really enjoyed. Mm-hmm. Um, so you said that, there's an old Japanese, there, pottery, ceramics style. It's called Kinsugi Mm-hmm. And this is effectively, you take broken pottery. A lot of times we'll take a whole piece of of base and break it up and then you then
mm-hmm. Um, and a lot of times you'll see this sort of gold gold lining, that's the most common way to do it. It's like a gold filament or whatever they use to to recombine those pieces. And idea that you present and they is present you can sort of, anything that is broken can be fixed. And the reverse is also true. Um, do you feel like that is absolutely true for for our lived environment? where we're
You mentioned that we're headed in the right direction? what you, what do you feel?
[00:21:06] Jeffery Tompkins: I think I have to believe that. I mm, think I have to believe that I, I think I made that decision to go all in on that. I can't, it's like the parable. Where does the doctor go to, to save the healthy No, they, they go where there's sick people. So when we have a place that's sick, where I'm from in Hammond and Gary, these places are very sick.
They're disinvested, they've, they've lost their tax base. People stopped caring. There's quality of life issues that stem from those disinvestments. That are generational.
There's fire
Sorry, this guy's like blasting music and I want to like just get down. But
[00:21:46] Michael Zarick: that's funny.
[00:21:47] Jeffery Tompkins: I, I have to believe that you, you can, you can always, you can always improve.
You can always be better, you know, and it's the smallest thing. It doesn't have to be this master plan. It doesn't have to be you hiring a consultant like myself to tell you what to do. It's as simple as picking up some trash. I have a garbage picker that I take on my walks.
[00:22:07] Michael Zarick: like the little, uh, the little T-Rex flaw.
[00:22:09] Jeffery Tompkins: Yeah. A hundred percent. And you know, I have my gloves and this is no like pat on my own back or anything, but if you walk in the Mass Ave Chatham Arch neighborhood, by any means, come out and see me or come take a walk with me and come pick up some trash. But, you know, whether we're taking a walk to Fat Dan's, or we're going to the Athenaeum, I'm picking up trash because that's the smallest thing I can do right now to make a difference.
I've been doing another thing where I've been planting, uh, pollinators. You're fine. Oh, no, you're fine. Yeah.
[00:22:38] JefferyTompkins: fine. Yeah.
[00:22:38] Jeffery Tompkins: Yeah. But just like, um, taking some pollinator seeds and just throwing them. Maybe not in this flower bed, but, you know, and, and
[00:22:45] Michael Zarick: No, I was gonna ask you about the tactical corn
I've been,
[00:22:48] Jeffery Tompkins: I've been, yeah, I've been tactically Oh, that's a real thing.
Yeah. I, I've been planting corn. It's, I'm not gonna tell you where, but you know, if you see some corn stalks downtown spreading from someone who hasn't taken care of their lawn, that's because I'm saying, well, if you're going to overgrow your lawn, you might as well have some corn. Nobody loves corn like an Indiana. Man.
[00:23:04] Michael Zarick: That's
[00:23:05] Jeffery Tompkins: You know what? I think that you should just lean into your place, you know, like we don't have an ocean, we don't have mountains. We barely have a river. And no, no offense to White River. I love the White River. We don't have these natural geo geographic things that people are attached to. We don't have big forests.
We don't have the Smoky Mountains. We don't have bears anymore. Did we have bears at one time? Oh yeah. We a hundred percent had bears. That's, scary. Yeah. I can go in a whole monologue about how we had the Everglades of the North and like the Kankakee Basin and there was all these migratory birds.
[00:23:38] Michael Zarick: Even how flat Indiana is?
[00:23:40] Jeffery Tompkins: Well, that's a diatribe that we're No, it, no, that's a hundred percent why it was so popular. There's this documentary, it was the PBS, I think WTTW in Chicago did it, and it talk, it was called Everglades of the North. And they talk about before the advent of, uh, the colonial settlers, the area which is roughly between like I 65 and the state line in Northern Indiana was a giant marsh, and it, it hosted millions of migratory birds every single season.
And there was this large, like giant lake that was like no more than five feet deep called Beaver Lake, and it had these little scattered islands and we had like. I don't wanna say like flamingos, but I think maybe flamingos like crazy stuff you would not expect in Indiana. And, but the, the Dunes National Lake Shore in what is now the national park, it had some of the most biodiverse fauna and mega fauna in the world before we This is, this is,
[00:24:36] Michael Zarick: complete. I'm
[00:24:37] Jeffery Tompkins: glad I asked you,
[00:24:37] Michael Zarick: about
[00:24:38] Jeffery Tompkins: but you should, you should watch the documentary I'm gonna send after this, I'm gonna text you the, it's like, I'm pretty sure Show notes.
Yeah, show notes. It's like, you know, Everglades of the North it, um, check it out. There's a book about it as well. What were you talking about? Um,
[00:24:50] Michael Zarick: Um,
[00:24:52] Jeffery Tompkins: oh gosh, I don't even remember. Yeah. Uh, but it was the, I have to believe that places can be better, but it's picking up trash. It was tactical corn we were talking about.
Yeah. But it's little things like that. So you don't, it doesn't have to be a master plan. It doesn't have to be a consultant gig. Do the smallest thing. Right now it's the Strong Towns message. Do the smallest thing you can right now and improve it. You can't tell me that doesn't. Help anything, even if no one sees that, you get to go away with the fact that I made my little corn of the world a little bit better today.
[00:25:21] Michael Zarick: If I if I come across some wild corn and I could eat it that little, that would make my life I
[00:25:26] Jeffery Tompkins: it's sweet corn.
Actually.
[00:25:28] Michael Zarick: I, I saw the, I saw the image. It was, i, um, so how much do you think about, um, as an urban planner, but you talk about design, how much do you think about like visual design? Of the places you're in? This
[00:25:41] Jeffery Tompkins: Ooh, that's a good, that's a good question.
It's almost, it almost bleeds into art and it, it, I think a lot about color and I think a lot about experience when I hear the word visual,
Mm-hmm.
because visual to me means experience and because it's just something that you are seeing through your eyes, but then that kind of creates this whole other set of feelings.
This is why in particular. Design of the built environment, urban design, things like enclosure are so important. There's ratios that some have speculated on are better and more conducive for streetlight or street life. I can look right now, and I, I've talked about this, but the, some of the two and three story buildings on Mass Ave are about to one to one ratio with the width of the street right of way, which means that the distance between buildings is the same as the height of the buildings.
That's pretty decent. But if you notice like in, in some places, like I'm going to Mexico City next week, I'm very excited about that. They have a totally different urbanism, 'em visually, very old city, very old city, but they, they have higher enclosure. If you go to a place like Over the Rhine in Cincinnati, sometimes it's three to one, where there's a three story or four or five story building, and the right of way is very narrow.
And so this kind of creates all kinds of different experiences for the person that's visually going through that. Now, that's just one way to think about it. I think maybe you were wanting to go in a different direction.
[00:27:16] Michael Zarick: I have a question about, um, historical design of cities.
[00:27:20] Jeffery Tompkins: Mm-hmm.
[00:27:21] Michael Zarick: Umm and I wanna know your, opinion. Yeah. So with the advent of of concrete, um, of cities visual design between uniform, um, worldwide. So if you look at, you know, Egypt or whatever they built with, um, i'm gonna make this up and you're, tell me I'm wrong, but the, it's a, it's a more brown and sort of, uh, visually distinct brown sort of, brick. Um, if you look at, you know, Colonial America, we. With logs and a lot more wood, um, as opposed to brick, because that was the lived environment we were in. With the but with the advent of of concrete, everything became sort of uniform and you lost a sense of personality between places.
[00:28:11] Jeffery Tompkins: Mm.
[00:28:12] Michael Zarick: If you have, um, an opinion about that, or if I'm
or if I'm even just making this up.
[00:28:15] Jeffery Tompkins: No, I mean, I think you're onto something and people have talked about this, so modernism and the international style,
mm-hmm.
I think is what you're hinting at.
[00:28:26] Michael Zarick: Mm-hmm.
[00:28:27] Jeffery Tompkins: And
[00:28:29] Michael Zarick: why does why does dubai look the same as New York City?
[00:28:32] Jeffery Tompkins: Dubai looks like Shanghai, looks like the Billionaire Row towers in New York City because they're all concrete and glass. Right? It's, and I mean, honestly, I mean, this is a question that we deal with like, is a skyscraper even a, a good, is that, is that a good for a city?
[00:28:49] Michael Zarick: Does that, when was the last time Indianapolis built a skyscraper? Probably years 20 ago.
[00:28:53] Jeffery Tompkins: Oh no. We've built a skyscraper. I mean, what if you call the deodorant stick that three sixty three sixty market square. Is, that was recent. And then we're building the Signia, which is gonna be 38 stories, arguably 40 with mechanical floors.
That's going to be 470 some feet in the sky. That, that's massive. And then we built the JW for the Super Bowl. And uh, I mean, that was in the last decade.
[00:29:17] Michael Zarick: The Marriott is very
[00:29:17] Jeffery Tompkins: large. that's in the last two decades. It's pretty striking.
Yeah. So we, we
Yeah. So I mean, we, we have, but just not on the pace of these other places. But I mean, honestly though, with all the, the Billionaires Row towers in New York City, I mean, what, what good has that done for most people that live in New York?
I mean, it looks great when you come in 'cause you're like, oh wow, this is what a city's supposed to look like. Especially that we're in the year 2025. But when you're walking on the street, you can only see about the first five to seven stories. So like your experience of the city, it goes back to the experience visually.
If you're on the ground level, which is most people that experience the city are, what does that mean to you? You know, it's only when you're far away that you can see what it is. And I guess. Maybe I'm answering my own question. There's a gravitas to that. You know when, when I'm driving in, I see the Sears Tower in Chicago.
Wow, that's cool. I mean, there, it's, I fell in love with that as a child, but when I'm walking around Chicago, I'm not thinking about the Sears Tower. I'm thinking about where I can get food, and there's a lot of places to do it.
[00:30:17] Michael Zarick: you think that's why you think that's why people are drawn to, you know, Italy, France, London, because they build mostly on a shorter short stack.
[00:30:25] Jeffery Tompkins: They're on the human scale. Yeah, they're on the, there's a, and there's also a granularity, and it's not even, it's not even those places. It, it's, it's places, even the United States that have done it right, like places like Philly, Boston, Charleston, Savannah. That have even colonial styles of architecture and planning, but because the lot sizes are small, they're pressed against the street.
There's a couple things they've done right that you, you can let the less the rest go, you can let the place go. Just get a couple things dialed in. And it doesn't have to be this, this huge thing because we built like that for millennia. If you look at Roman insulae, they were mixed use buildings, but they were very small, like a, a parcel or block large.
If you look at our mixed use buildings now, whether on Mass Ave or elsewhere, there are these giant podium structures that are 75 feet tall and they're like one big large Lego brick. But that's not how we've built, we, we've built like a bunch of little tiny shops next to each other. So I, I think that visually, I think that we want to be, we wanna be surprised.
We like novelty we like something around the corner. We like having that palette of different experiences and windows and lighting and all that other stuff. We like the chaos. It makes us stay and linger and, and have conversations and think and be inspired and do all these things that make us human.
Mm-hmm.
And we're getting rid of that because of what you said was it's easier to build with not only concrete and glass, but we zone for, and we build for, and we lend for, and we finance for those things.
[00:32:00] Michael Zarick: Definitely. That was a great answer. I really appreciate that. Um, I had a question in my head. And now it's gone.
[00:32:09] Jeffery Tompkins: We need a bus bleep. A what?
A bus bleep.
Oh. Um, oh man. Gimme a second. It'll come back.
[00:32:19] Michael Zarick: Is there anything you wanna talk about or you wanna bring up?
[00:32:21] Jeffery Tompkins: I mean, you know, I'm, I love talking, um, outside on the park, so, you know, I like to, I like to just have a conversation about what's going on in someone's world. Like what are you looking forward to?
[00:32:35] Michael Zarick: What am I looking forward?
[00:32:35] Jeffery Tompkins: Yeah, what are you looking forward to?
[00:32:37] Michael Zarick: I'm actually going to Puerto Rico
[00:32:37] Jeffery Tompkins: What?
[00:32:39] Michael Zarick: Uh, leaving the seventh. That's easiest way for me to
June 7th. June 7th. So you're gonna be in Puerto Rico when I'm in Mexico City. Yeah. So we're, we're both going to Latin America.
Hmm.
[00:32:49] Jeffery Tompkins: That's awesome. What are you going to go? Are you gonna San Jose? Believe so.
[00:32:52] Michael Zarick: yes. Yeah, I
[00:32:53] Jeffery Tompkins: I did not plan to this. I'm just, this is,
[00:32:55] Michael Zarick: uh,
I shouldn't say this out loud.
No, no, no, no, super not involved with planning. And just walk the ride. Um, it's our honeymoon trip.
[00:33:04] Jeffery Tompkins: Okay. Congratulations.
[00:33:06] Michael Zarick: Thank you. Thank you. Um, and we got married on June 9th, so we're going on the one year anniversary of our of our marriage. Um, yeah. And we're, I think we're exploring San Juan. There's a
[00:33:19] Jeffery Tompkins: Oh, San Juan. That's what, that's what I meant to say.
Isn't that what
That is what you No, I said
I said
San Jose. I think I'm correcting myself in real time.
[00:33:25] Michael Zarick: Oh.
[00:33:25] Jeffery Tompkins: San Juan. Damn. I'm mad at myself. I should know that was it.
[00:33:29] Michael Zarick: Are either of us right? I I dunno. Um,
[00:33:31] Jeffery Tompkins: a fact check or fact check.
[00:33:33] Michael Zarick: rainforest that's down there.
[00:33:35] Jeffery Tompkins: Okay.
[00:33:35] Michael Zarick: Like a day day trip. To the rainforest. The reason we're going, because Anna's parents, my wife, um, went and they loved it, and they're, and it's, and and I don't have a passport, so it's uh,
[00:33:48] Jeffery Tompkins: do you not need a pass? You don't need a passport to go to San Juan or San Jose or Puerto Rico or United States territory.
and they
they can't vote.
[00:33:56] Michael Zarick: And they
[00:33:56] Jeffery Tompkins: can't. Damn. I had to get a passport, so to Mexico, Mexico, gonna i'm gonna Mexico. Yeah. And. I gotta admit, you know, I'm not, I'm unabashed here, but like, I have not held up my end of the bargain.
I don't see, I'm an urban planner in my day, day shift. When I go home, I don't want to plan crap. Like, I want to be spontaneous. Like, am I getting pizza tonight? The same way? Way. Yeah. Yeah. Like, so she's got all these grandiose plans, which I'm like totally excited for it. She wants to climb a volcano. Great. She's like,
horrifying. I thought so too. I'm actually don't, don't. Though. No, it's not, it's not the volcano that's scaring me. It's the altitude sickness, you know. Know, 'cause Mexico's like 9,000 feet up mm-hmm. Mexico City is, and then the volcano's 15,000. So anyways, I'll be fine. Probably I'll, yeah.
[00:34:44] Michael Zarick: Um, so I'll ask this now 'cause I think it's really interesting. I actually already know your answer.
[00:34:50] Jeffery Tompkins: Oh,
[00:34:50] Michael Zarick: Because I follow you on Twitter. Uh oh. You've already answered the question, but I, i,
this is, is, uh, fun to talk about. So the previous. Guest asked you question as will the next guest the question. As well. Oh. Oh.
Um, but the question is, how many games for the Pacers to win the Eastern conference?
[00:35:08] Jeffery Tompkins: Pacers in six.
[00:35:09] Michael Zarick: In six? I thought you said five.
[00:35:11] Jeffery Tompkins: Uh, I would want them to win in five, but I mean, we're at what four now
[00:35:15] Michael Zarick: We're about to hit, uh, the fifth game. Tomorrow.
[00:35:18] Jeffery Tompkins: Yeah. And I just, I think that six feels good. The Knicks are really great. You know, I, I'm concerned about the thunder and the finals. I think that's gonna be a tough matchup. I think that one goes to seven, but, uh, Pacers, Pacers and six against the Knicks.
Right on.
[00:35:33] Michael Zarick: All right on. So, um, the reason, uh, I'm bringing this up now is because i'm actually not a sports guy. I
[00:35:41] Jeffery Tompkins: Ooh.
[00:35:42] Michael Zarick: I haven't watched any of these games. Actually. Do you have
[00:35:43] Jeffery Tompkins: IU sweater on. I do.
[00:35:45] Michael Zarick: I do. What's wrong with having with an IU?
[00:35:46] Jeffery Tompkins: It just,
[00:35:47] Michael Zarick: there.
[00:35:48] Jeffery Tompkins: uh, but this is a, just see, you know,
[00:35:49] Michael Zarick: I feel weird bringing this up a game 'cause it's gonna be the direct continuation previous episode. But, um, I've come to appreciate sports greatly as a.
community Building tool, um, and naming it a tool sounds so utilitarian, but that's really what it is, is you have this, uh, entity, this sports team that is something that people rally behind. It's almost like it, the military of old, it's almost like your nationalism is now based in sports.
[00:36:19] Jeffery Tompkins: Yeah. The cities go to war with each other, literally. Yeah.
[00:36:22] Michael Zarick: Um, and I think that's I learned when I lived in Arkansas is this like extreme power of, of sports. And that's something I've found really compelling, especially recently when, when your team is doing really well, the whole city comes together.
[00:36:37] Jeffery Tompkins: Yeah. And people start stabbing people.
[00:36:39] Michael Zarick: Is that true? Is does crime go up when teams are winning?
[00:36:42] Jeffery Tompkins: i'll? I mean, the kid in Carmel stabbed like two Knicks fans or something.
[00:36:46] Michael Zarick: Oh my oh my god. This is news me, um, I
[00:36:51] Jeffery Tompkins: I mean that I'm not sponsoring that. I'm just saying like people do get Yeah.
[00:36:53] Michael Zarick: Minus the murder. Or, yeah. Or you know, harm.
[00:36:57] Jeffery Tompkins: Harm for sure.
[00:36:58] Michael Zarick: I hope it wasn't murder
[00:36:58] Jeffery Tompkins: No, I don't. I think they're fine. I don't, I don't haven't checked, I haven't checked yet though.
[00:37:02] Michael Zarick: You
[00:37:02] Jeffery Tompkins: didn't call him up or anything? No, I don't know this person. I'm not associated whatsoever with the stabbing that happened.
[00:37:08] Michael Zarick: Um,
Um, so do you feel that sort of sense of, of of ownership in a way, uh, it's like, hey, I, I i, I see you wearing a Pacer's jersey and I'm out randomly. Like, does that, does that connection mean something? At all?
[00:37:23] Jeffery Tompkins: I think so. Uh, one, so cities are intersubjective realities and like most intersubjective realities, they only exist if you believe in them. And that might sound crazy 'cause cities are a physical place. But what I mean by intersubjective reality is it's an idea that exists because we agree it does.
So if I hand you a dollar,
mm-hmm.
both accept that as a dollar because we both accept that it has value. If you stop believing that the dollar had any value, then. you wouldn't take it.
[00:37:57] Michael Zarick: Mm-hmm.
[00:37:58] Jeffery Tompkins: And so when we have ideas that people begin to share those ideas and those, those va the value of those ideas, it becomes way more powerful.
This is how humans were able to like do amazing things throughout millennia and, and today even. And when we see the denigration of some of our, our intersubjective realities like democracy, when people stop believing that their elections matter, you see a denigration of social values, you see crime go up, or you see people that just stop participating in their basic civic functions of voting.
So a city as an idea. It's so much more powerful when we agree it has value.
Mm-hmm.
So when your team's doing great, of course, but sports are such an easy way to embody that viscerally rather than a, like the abstraction of it. It's turning a abstraction to a concrete because you're like, yeah, go Indy, which is an idea.
It's, it's got b boundaries that man created that are arbitrary and capricious based on our whims at one point of what a county was under a Jeffersonian grid. And then we attached all these meanings of what that place means to it. And that's all abstract, technically speaking.
[00:39:13] Michael Zarick: So, sorry to to interrupt.
[00:39:14] Jeffery Tompkins: No, no, no, you're good.
[00:39:15] Michael Zarick: On the same line of thinking, why do you think people get so excited for the Indy 500
that's like, not, you don't, um, there's no, not the same sort of sense of team. It's sort of, I'm just gonna go have a party.
[00:39:30] Jeffery Tompkins: It's the, it's the same thing because the party is like, uh, inter uh, replaced the idea of city with like the party or the tradition or, or the, the gravitas of 350,000 people being confined in one space.
And when the Indy 500 happens, that's the 52nd largest metropolitan statistical area in the United States.
I saw that tweet.
So it, it's. It's about the idea of something and getting people to buy in. I, so whether it's the 500 or the Super Bowl or the Final Four or something, these things are important because we agree they have value between us.
And so we're It's an embo, same sort of extrapolation. Yeah.
[00:40:09] Michael Zarick: thought. Yeah.
[00:40:10] Jeffery Tompkins: It's so, it's it's physical embodiment of the fact that we have these abstractions of value and it's the way that we can easily categorize them as you versus me. It's maybe tribalism, maybe it's nationalism. I think it's great bonding. I, I, I tend to agree with you and that's why when you look at things like intramural sports or, or even a team going into the playoffs, this brings out flags and this brings out all this kind of emotion because it's healthier to do that in the setting of sports than,
than the battlefield.
than the battlefield.
Than the battlefield.
[00:40:41] Michael Zarick: Healthier for multiple reasons.
[00:40:43] Jeffery Tompkins: Yeah.
[00:40:43] Michael Zarick: Um, amazing. So where, again, let's circling back. We're sitting on Mass. You live. In in this neighborhood somewhere um, you know that direction, just sweeping. Um, where here in this neighborhood, Chatham Arch oh, actually, this brings me to another question aside. Uh, what do you know what Chatham can you Chatham is?
[00:41:14] Jeffery Tompkins: So Chatham was a plot, original plot way back when, and we're talking about the 19th century. The, the, the origin of the Chatham Arch neighborhood wasn't until modern eras about 19 79, 19 80, when it became part of the historic register of the United States.
And that area is more strictly, uh, bounded by certain streets. But it was a, essentially a, not a portmanteau, but a, a combination of the Chatham Plot, which was way back when, 19th century of certain parcels in, uh, the, in this area. Uh, roughly bounded by, uh, east and north and I guess where the interstates go through now, that, that area, and then combining that with Arch Street.
So when they had to come up with a name for the area, 'cause it didn't historically have a full name, they combine it with Arch Street. So that, that's, that's the long story
I thought or the short story. I guess.
[00:42:14] Michael Zarick: I was running with the assumption that Chatham was, a person, like I said Walter P Chatham. Yeah, a, he's, 'cause there's a, there's a brewery or whatever in, at Butler University called, uh, Chatham.
[00:42:27] Jeffery Tompkins: So, so Chatham is, I believe the English word for hollow or, or wood or something like that. I'm not, don't quote me on that ology. It, it's, it's some, it's eng it's like English for hearth or some, some, something like that.
Yeah. It
means like co it's like.
[00:42:44] JefferyTompkins: I,
[00:42:45] Jeffery Tompkins: I, I could be just floating here, but like, it's some embodiment of coziness or, you know, wooded home.
[00:42:52] Michael Zarick: Um, so back to the original question, which I was sort of alluding to, but where on this street or wherever you hang out? Like where if I, you just met me, which you just have,
today, like where are you taking me that like, this is my spot, this is is where I hang out.
[00:43:06] Jeffery Tompkins: You know, it's funny because I'm, uh, I'm a big Chicago Cubs fan, and so I always go to Fat Dans and it's just,
[00:43:13] Michael Zarick: that's way North of here
[00:43:15] Jeffery Tompkins: or is there another No, no, there's, there's one downtown,
[00:43:17] Michael Zarick: Fat
[00:43:17] Jeffery Tompkins: Dan.
Oh, yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. It's like our, our little dive hangout, which is, you know, it's a local chain I guess, but that's, that's where I go for like Pacers games or a Cubs game and get an old style, but. I love the Athenaeum I love Coat Check Coffee. It's truly a community center. They have Turner's Gym in there now, which has taken over the YMCA spot. They have the theater in there. Oh, the YMCA it was the YMCA It was the YMCA dropped and let me scan in. Oh, there's, um, so Turner's has the, Athenaeum a i
I, i, and i, I don't wanna get in trouble here, but they've pretty much taken over the gym and they've kept it as a community functioning gym. So you have a gym there, you have a coffee shop, you have a theater, you have the Rathskeller, you have the beer garden.
So I, I mean, off. It's, it really is, you know, and it's, it's, it's all these things of, of what? A could
kind of community center. So that would be Coat Check. I always go meet people for coffee there.
[00:44:12] Michael Zarick: I thought their coffee was good. I've been in there once
[00:44:14] Jeffery Tompkins: Their coffee's very good and they have really good pastries as well. And also creama better than the
[00:44:19] Michael Zarick: than the
[00:44:19] Jeffery Tompkins: coffee.
Oh yeah. Yeah. By, by
[00:44:21] Michael Zarick: whatever scale I'm running off of. I
[00:44:23] Jeffery Tompkins: I, you know, I just get drip coffee. I, I want to be a coffee snob, but I don't want to pay for it, so I just always get drip coffee and then I get so jacked up. 'cause I get like a free refill and I have too much coffee.
[00:44:35] Michael Zarick: That's That's pretty funny. Yeah. Yeah,
You got a, a brawl.
[00:44:39] Jeffery Tompkins: I think we have a dog fight. See, that's what happens when you don't have sports.
They have the puppy bowl. They don't know about that. I don't think
[00:44:49] Michael Zarick: All right, so
we got Fat Dan's. We Coat Check coffee and the surrounding, uh, center around Coat Check coffee.
[00:44:55] Jeffery Tompkins: The Crema slash Almost Famous is great. Curtis is amazing. He's the owner. It's kind of like a little spot outta Spain in the daytime. It's a coffee shop. You got tapas, you got really comfy chairs.
Really nice, just always welcoming. You got a, it's just a little bit everything. The, the menu, the, the decor. He's done such a great job with that space. And then at night it turns into kind of a cocktail spot. But I'm mostly there for the coffee and it is just a little bit of b best of both worlds. I really like that spot.
I
[00:45:28] Michael Zarick: have a, I gonna make my own plug.
Ooh.
[00:45:30] Jeffery Tompkins: Ooh. I've only gone there once, but I really
[00:45:32] Michael Zarick: really want to go back. is Bodhi
[00:45:34] Jeffery Tompkins: Oh my God. Okay, so I forgot about Bodhi No, no, no, no, no, no. Bodhi's like Thai restaurant. I think that's my favorite restaurant. Indy.
[00:45:40] Michael Zarick: I think people say that.
[00:45:41] Jeffery Tompkins: Yeah, it's pretty damn good.
[00:45:43] Michael Zarick: You reasonably priced for the quality you're getting
[00:45:45] Jeffery Tompkins: It's really good. And they don't accept reservations, which I kind of like. It's very hipstery and you do have to like, you gotta, like,
[00:45:52] Michael Zarick: we
went one night and we showed up at 5.05. It opens at five, and we waited
probably
hour
[00:45:57] Jeffery Tompkins: half was, was it like a busy night?
[00:45:59] Michael Zarick: It was
It was just Saturday.
[00:46:00] Jeffery Tompkins: Oh yeah, you're gonna do that.
We tried to go down the weeknights, but it's still even sometimes I'll see like a bar seat and I'm like, oh, I can just hit the bar. Right. And they're like, no, you need a reserv. Or you, uh, you know, we're actually get in line or get in line. You get in line. Yeah. You can't, you can't just go up in there like that. So no, Bodhi is.
10 outta 10. But with all the, the the development of Bottleworks too, it's, we, we love it here because we truly live in a 15 minute neighborhood, a 15 minute walk. Any directions I can get, whatever we want. My partner, she likes to.
[00:46:30] Michael Zarick: Where do you shop for groceries?
Is there a grocery store?
[00:46:32] Jeffery Tompkins: You know, this doesn't sound bad, but like, if I need something in a pinch, I go to the DGX, which is kinda like a bodega but Dollar General version.
And they have like all your like toiletries and like nail clippers, randomist stuff. But if we need something in a pinch like toilet paper, we'll go to DGX. We try to shop as local as possible. The farmer's markets we hit up, or, um, there's also clothes to Whole Foods and Needler, which a little pricier. So sometimes we go to the Kroger.
But Where's your farmer market? Uh, there's one on Monument Circle every Wednesday. Oh really?
Oh, for
Yeah. And do they do the Little Park thing or are they We are doing Spark starts the 31st. What day is it? That is in three days. So we
[00:47:11] Michael Zarick: It this, we do have a question about that. Is it permanent when it. Opens or is
[00:47:15] Jeffery Tompkins: it's only three months.
And there's,
[00:47:17] Michael Zarick: I mean, when I say permanent, I mean seven days a week.
[00:47:20] Jeffery Tompkins: Yes. From the time it opens. Yes. Without me getting in trouble by the, the powers that be, I, I believe that's the idea. Seven days a week with active programming throughout the daytime and, uh, obviously security, which is an issue. Um, public safety as well, but Spark, I'm huge.
I a huge fan. I love Spark. And then with the farmer's market there, on Wednesdays you have like the circle three quarters closed, which they should just do all the time. I,
[00:47:44] Michael Zarick: the,
I, that's actually how I connected with you is you were down, uh, around the circle.
Oh, do you remember that? I, i, I
[00:47:52] Jeffery Tompkins: I got your replies.
Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This whole area off. I said yes. I, my, like, my big pipe dream is to like, in the wintertime, turn that into the world's, or at least the Midwest largest circular ice rink. So not that's
genius. That's, like the, the, the car place itself, like the, the bricks, you know? So then like you're just in a continuous loop and then you can line it with like, all the Chris Kennel market shops and hot chocolate. I mean, I think it would be a, it'd be a killer move.
[00:48:19] Michael Zarick: There would be so many people down down there,
[00:48:20] Jeffery Tompkins: there. It would be like it. And you have the monument in the middle. People would come from miles to see that.
[00:48:25] Michael Zarick: Anna's mom, my mother-in-law told me that they used to do skating in
the fountains.
[00:48:30] Jeffery Tompkins: The fountains. Yeah. But it, it messed up the,
[00:48:31] Michael Zarick: very much
[00:48:32] Jeffery Tompkins: that's not very much space.
It's not a lot of space. And it's not circular. And it messed up the limestone bedrock, which is bad. But think about it, if you can just like, 'cause I mean, it's just, no,
[00:48:39] Michael Zarick: I, the vision is there. And I, that's, a,
[00:48:42] Jeffery Tompkins: that was wonderful. Just line it with little, uh, shops,
[00:48:44] Michael Zarick: but also like, why is it, why do you need to drive around there? Who needs that?
[00:48:48] Jeffery Tompkins: Because if you want to blast your motorcycle and bug people, you can hang out with all your frigging motorcycle buddies. So, uh, I'm gonna get in trouble for that.
[00:48:58] Michael Zarick: One last question.
[00:48:59] Jeffery Tompkins: Who's gonna get you in trouble?
[00:49:00] Michael Zarick: I'm not gonna
[00:49:00] Jeffery Tompkins: are gonna come from me, man. They've been looking for me for years. Um.
[00:49:05] Michael Zarick: So one last question, 'cause this is something I'm really passionate about, is what roads, I've already brought up one road, uh, at least on Twitter element, it now,
but what roads around Indianapolis do you think that we can close permanently, maybe temporarily, but maybe some tests first, uh, to like allow for more pedestrian infrastructure?
My, my dream is to close Broad Ripple Road between College and that other road that I can never remember.
[00:49:29] Jeffery Tompkins: Westfield, maybe West. Yeah.
I, i, I think that that's a good low hanging fruit. I would start
[00:49:34] Michael Zarick: because it's this, the idea is that, um, to get into induced demand mm-hmm. Induced
demand, that being, if there is a road there, people will go there, but if there's not, they'll find alternate paths.
[00:49:47] Jeffery Tompkins: Right. Um,
[00:49:48] Michael Zarick: I think that, that is not, would not be a super disruptive closure
and would be beneficial to all of the the. Business there
[00:49:55] Jeffery Tompkins: I, I think it's really easy to fall in the trap of wanting to do something all at once.
Mm-hmm.
Which requires money, buy-in, political will, and a lot of signatures rather than getting there a little incrementally.
I know that's not a sexy answer, but I think that Do you dream of moving quickly? I, I, I, I like to move at the speed of trust too though, with the public, because we have, we, so for instance, like we experimented with closing streets in the United States in the sixties and seventies like this. This was a citywide phenomenon.
There was this architect, Victor Gruen, and he actually designed a pedestrian mall in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and then one in Muncy, Indiana, and they closed down their main streets and just turned 'em into malls. The issue was, and a lot of people point to these now as why we can't do nice things, is they failed to spectacularly, like failed so bad.
But what people don't paint the picture fully with is the context of which these happened with in the sixties and seventies. You had macroeconomic things that were moving people outta the city anyways. And of course they weren't going to use it because all the shops had left. So now we have these thriving business districts like Mass Ave and, and Broad Ripple and, and, um, to the extent the wholesale district with, with some of what's going on with Circle Center.
You have opportunities now, but colored with that color or that history of this is, this is scary. I think that to get that incrementally back to your point, I think Broad Ripple will have, do something like Austin's done with 36th on the weekends or week nights that get a little busy, shut it down, still allow deliveries, do your curb management, but then after a certain hour, turn it into more of a promenade.
I think that's, that's low hanging fruit. I think obviously Monument Circle, at least half of it is very low hanging fruit. I think that should have been done years ago and I, I don't, I don't really buy the arguments that it shouldn't, it shouldn't be or it doesn't make sense. Uh, if you see the success of Spark and just going there on a weeknight with it closed down and eating, eating dinner or something, it's, it's amazing.
And I think that some more retail would follow. Um, now something like Mass Ave, I, I think that we wanna be careful with, because a lot of the merchants, I believe, would be afraid of not having that access to the curbside, whether that's whether that's parking or for, what we forget about a lot of times is garbage. We think about buses, we think about deliveries.
These are all things that are needed to sustain businesses. So these are popular choices. I think that in a way, there's a time and a place, but all at once will be difficult. I know that's not the, oh, he is got a flat tire. Yeah. All those dang scooters. I, I think that something similar to what, um, Bogotá Columbia has done, or even Los Angeles has like.
Car free Sundays, and they just open up the streets to like cyclists and, and pedestrians in certain zones of the city. I think that could be a really fun way to like, do a super block idea, whether that's in the mile square and just say, Hey, look, we're doing no cars a mile square on Sundays, one parking's already free, so you're not gonna lose parking revenue.
The big, the big thing we gotta think about this is that the, the Ballard administration signed something like, um, a multi-decade parking deal that sold our parking meters to Park Indy ad nauseum. So we can't just reclaim those without buying them back. So that's a long-winded answer, but I, I, I think those are the areas I would choose.
[00:53:27] Michael Zarick: No, it's interest. I, I think I get, um, up in arms about that type of thing. Mm-hmm.
[00:53:32] Jeffery Tompkins: It's
[00:53:33] Michael Zarick: like I want change, but hearing the sound minded, uh, response of just like, you know, hold your horses as you will, will, uh, is, is very very of, of you to do. Um. Um, so, uh, one last question. Actually, I have another question, but again, it's left my mind. So the last question I have for you is, what question would you like to ask the next guest?
Ooh,
[00:53:59] Jeffery Tompkins: Ooh, that's a good, that's a good question. Oh, okay. So I always like to answer are, well, you know what? No, let me, let me in that. Um, so let me ask this. What has some, what is something that has inspired you lately?
[00:54:17] Michael Zarick: Hmm.
[00:54:19] Jeffery Tompkins: Simple. Well, I'm gonna ask you that too. Oh, me? Yeah.
[00:54:22] Michael Zarick: Oh man.
[00:54:26] Jeffery Tompkins: And then when they have difficulty with it, hopefully they don't, you can say, well, he asked me to.
[00:54:32] Michael Zarick: What is something? There's been a lot of things that have inspired me lately. Um, first of all, talking to people on this podcast has been really powerful for me. Um.
My most recent guest, Abby Reckard is like, so dope. She's doing all the right stuff, in my opinion. Um, maybe not the opinion of the masses. Um, because it, you know, from the outside it looks like she's just throwing money at trying to open a community space, but she's really making a change. in Fletcher where she's doing that. But everyone I've talked to on this podcast is such a strong voice in whatever small part of the world. They're in. all all like, it's sort of,
uh, uh,
inspiring as you you as the question, uh, requires. Um, you people who are doing the work capital W uh, to build out their needs um, are all really powerful to me, um, including yourself. So shout out thanks man.
Um. That's, that's. What the really comes to mind in terms of what has inspired me? Me. Uh, outside of that, I really don't know. Not, I can tell you what has not inspired me, which is the is the linkedIn job. Board.
[00:55:55] Jeffery Tompkins: No, it's, it's miserable. I, it's like AI that's generating leads for AI to get put in an algorithm to,
[00:56:02] Michael Zarick: I clicked it's, so I've been using like an AI job site, but that site linked me to another AI job site that then linked me to a real job posting that I didn't end up applying to. But I was like, this is, this is crazy.
[00:56:19] Jeffery Tompkins: I think the true advantage is going to be just going up and talking to people soon because it's so easy to click to apply and look at us now. You know, not can't stop us now. This
[00:56:28] Michael Zarick: is the, this is the best. Um, this is both the most effective form of mark, uh, uh, networking I've ever participated in, but also most enjoyable, um, because I'm genuinely talking to people that I already want to talk to.
[00:56:41] Jeffery Tompkins: It's kinda like tactical marketing man.
[00:56:43] Michael Zarick: Oh, also I get the, the people are like, how are you gonna market your podcast? I was like, I'm doing active marketing by interviewing people. That's like, the, and then also, you know, if someone were to walk up, and be like, whatcha doing? No one's done that. I think people are of us.
[00:56:56] Jeffery Tompkins: No, no, nah, I think that it's, I don't know. It's one of the things about a city is people just kind of have their own stuff going on. Like, and like, they respect us enough to leave us alone.
Mm-hmm.
I'm sure that if we weren't talking to each other, someone would be like, Hey, what are you guys doing? Yeah, yeah. You know, 'cause there's a natural curiosity.
[00:57:13] Michael Zarick: There's, um, an article or or a blog post whatever
you wanna call it. Call
[00:57:17] Jeffery Tompkins: Oh, Substack.
[00:57:18] Michael Zarick: me, uh, I think it was a Substack.
Post
[00:57:21] Jeffery Tompkins: no. Um, uh,
[00:57:22] Michael Zarick: but it was called, uh, High Agency.
[00:57:25] Jeffery Tompkins: Okay.
[00:57:25] Michael Zarick: Uh,
Okay. highagency.com. I,
'em a plug.
I didn't agree with most of the article, but there was a couple things in there I, I did like, and one of them was that you should not, like, like, you should should stop worrying about what other people think. 'Cause what people remember. Uh, of any
individual is just like the weird stuff. Right. Um, like worry about how you look or whatever, but, you know, us sitting out here, people will be like, oh, I saw these two dudes just like sitting in the street.
Yeah.
And it's like, I'm not worried about what these people think of me, right.
I'm just here to get, get the job done. But like, I'm, it's a little weird. Like we
could have been in in
an office case, which we were trying to do, but I think that this would work out really well.
[00:58:05] Jeffery Tompkins: I like this and I appreciate you inviting me and, and having this conversation outside in such a lovely overcast day.
It really turned out nice. I'm, I'm, I'm happy about, it's important
because it gives us the flat light, so we love lifting.
good.
Yeah. There we go. Alright,
[00:58:20] Michael Zarick: uh,
Okay,
Mr. Jeffrey Tompkins, is there anything else you'd like to say? Any plugs?
[00:58:25] Jeffery Tompkins: No plugs? No. I'm, I'm not a self-promotion kind of person, but I'm just, I'm, I'm happy for Indianapolis best days to be ahead and I, I truly believe that they're coming.
And I, I want to implore everybody to, if you see some, some trash in on your sidewalk, just pick it up. Definitely, you know, do the smallest thing you can and, and make your world a little bit better.
[00:58:48] Michael Zarick: There's this common sense or common feeling that there's a blank slate in Indianapolis.
and the,
[00:58:52] Jeffery Tompkins: There's so much potential.
There's
[00:58:54] Michael Zarick: a chisel to be had.
had.
[00:58:55] Jeffery Tompkins: There's so much potential if we get out of our own way.
[00:58:59] Michael Zarick: Well, thank you, Jeffrey, for joining me on Third Space Indy.
This, is Michael Zarick uh, and
I you have a great rest day, and look forward to, sharing the next episode with you with a high five.
[00:59:09] Jeffery Tompkins: Thanks, Michael. Bang, elbows.
[00:59:16] Michael Zarick: Hey, Michael here. Thanks for listening to this episode of Third Space Indy. If you're interested in learning more about Jeffrey's work, you can find him posting on Twitter @ Jeffreytompkins. He also just launched his new architectural design firm called Proformus. A link to that will be in the show notes
If you're interested in hearing more Third Space Indy guests. You can find all the episodes on thirdspaceindy.com in the archives When you go there, I would be eternally grateful if you shared your email with me. I write a blog and show notes with each episode to release every Monday. You can also find us at Third Space Indy on Instagram and YouTube,
or email in your thoughts and feelings to thirdspaceindy@gmail.com. Thanks always to Jennasen for permission to use her song, Scared Rabbit as our theme. And thanks once again for listening. I look forward to sharing the next episode of Third Space Indy with you.