WEBVTT

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The Yellow Light: "Me against the World."

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We all want to change the world, but

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social change doesn't come from converting every person

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one by one.

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The current crop of new urbanists and champions

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of active mobility don't aim to bully each

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listener into a new lifestyle.

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We won't expect you to defy the incentives

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that make driving sensible for you.

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We only ask to have the option to

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safely walk, ride, and roll.

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This demands new considerations in the built environment,

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not in your individual choices.

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If I were to sum up what I'm

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going to talk about, it's basically this.

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Individual choice versus social change.

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The movement to make stronger towns, to have

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new urbanism, what have you.

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It's about what is around us and how

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that shapes people's decisions.

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It's not about the decisions of individuals as

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a response to that environment.

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Expecting better drivers, perfect drivers, perfect people, that's

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exactly what we need to get away from.

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I want to see fewer people needing to

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drive, hopefully choosing not to drive where possible,

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but not needing to drive as much because

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the fewer times you drive, the fewer times

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you're putting yourself and others at risk, the

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less damage you're doing to the environment around

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you, the less you're imposing on others, on

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their space.

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All of the above.

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It's like cigarettes.

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I don't want a healthier cigarette to avoid

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lung cancer.

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If I don't want lung cancer, I should

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just not smoke as much.

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Not everybody's going to quit instantly 100%, but

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maybe instead of a pack a day, you're

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only smoking one or two cigarettes a day.

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Driving's similar.

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We're not trying to make everybody go outside

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and burn a car.

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If you have a car, go outside and

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burn it, take it apart.

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No, that's not the point.

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Cars, private cars, do serve a purpose.

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Should they serve every purpose?

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No.

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Is a Phillips head screwdriver good?

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Yes.

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Should you use a Phillips head screwdriver for

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everything?

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You turn it around and bang it on

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nails with the handle side?

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No.

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Should you use a Phillips head screwdriver to

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repair clothing, to fix a faucet?

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Probably not.

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But that doesn't mean we should get rid

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of the Phillips head screwdriver entirely.

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For those who can do it, for those

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for whom it may be a slight inconvenience

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but not impossible, I would like to see

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those people drive less.

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Maybe if it's a short trip and it's

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feasible, maybe walk or ride a bike, roll,

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whatever it is.

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You don't need to drive for everything.

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Maybe you could drive for fewer things.

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If you expect to have free parking and

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the environment around us often encourages us to

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expect free parking and congestion-free roadways everywhere,

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it might make sense.

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It may feel natural to drive everywhere.

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And if you can do that less, that

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would be great.

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You probably can.

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But we're not going to change everything by

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that.

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I don't want to go door to door

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trying to convert everyone.

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If I were to compare this to movements

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to make America less racist, less discriminatory, Martin

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Luther King Jr. had his eyes on the

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prize.

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He led the Milliman March in Washington, D

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.C. Some of the greatest changes came through

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the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights

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Act.

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This made it illegal to have discrimination at

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restaurants, water fountains, to have...

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It also meant for the first time in

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a very long time, blacks could vote in

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the South again.

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After Reconstruction ended with the Compromise of 1877,

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very bad elements took power in society again

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and effectively disenfranchised most black people in America.

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Martin Luther King Jr., however, did not only

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look at that.

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He did not dismiss people as irredeemable.

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At the same time, he didn't want to

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redeem everybody and take his time with every

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individual person.

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You convert certain people in places of power,

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and you try to have wide, effective changes

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where possible.

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One person who's fairly famous in anti-racism

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efforts in recent times is Darrell Davis.

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He has befriended several members of the Ku

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Klux Klan, becomes friends with these people, and

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these people, they stop being white supremacists.

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They're friends with Darrell Davis, who's a black

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guy, and he's alright.

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He's good.

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I like him.

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Wait.

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Why am I racist?

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I think that's great, and it's certainly a

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lot better and a lot more than 99

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% of everybody is doing on this front.

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It's great.

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I also don't harbor delusions that this is

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going to change America.

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Not unless you have many, many people doing

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this all the time.

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You're going to need structural or social or

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political changes.

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That's what the movement to change the built

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environment is about.

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It's not trying to make every individual person

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make perfect choices.

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It's trying to change the system that encourages

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certain behaviors or makes certain behaviors impossible.

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A lot of people under this umbrella in

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North America tend to have a more liberal

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attitude towards crime and a more tolerant attitude

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in general.

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They're not going to be law and order.

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They're not like that.

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Unfortunately, this means that people who have some

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privileges, say, being male, tall, young, able-bodied,

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etc., people who can defend themselves in the

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case of violent crime, they tend to dismiss

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the concerns of others and tell people to

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get over it.

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That's not going to change the fact that

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transit in North America is more dangerous than

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it is in other countries.

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It's not because transit in and of itself

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is dangerous.

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No, no, no.

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It's far safer for society.

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In terms of lives, major injuries, certainly, certainly

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much better.

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The problem is people.

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We have a lot of crime in North

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America, especially in the USA.

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There is a lot of crime.

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That's undeniable.

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It's a lot less safe in, say, a

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subway system in LA than it is in

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Seoul, Korea.

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But South Korea does not have a totalitarian

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police state.

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That's not because the people there are so

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good or so bad.

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It's because when you have transit that everybody

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rides, most people everywhere, most people are good.

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And the most, quote, normal people you have,

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the better.

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If the only people who ride transit are

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those who are desperate to ride transit and

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those who cannot move in any other way,

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then you're going to have a lot of

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good people who can do other options, pursue

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those other options.

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I wouldn't advocate that level of individualized security

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where if you're a single mother, you have

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kids and you need to protect yourself, you

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need to drive a car.

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And that may be what's feasible right now

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for where you live.

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And then expect everybody else to do the

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same.

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That's going to leave out many people who

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will have to take transit, will have to

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take buses, et cetera.

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And even if everybody could get her own

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SUV to protect the kids, the family themselves,

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that's still going to be much less safe

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than if all those people were riding transit

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and trains and buses.

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We shouldn't expect any person to be the

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first one to completely put themselves at risk.

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That's not going to change things.

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If you're the one person who's doing that,

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thank you.

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But you are putting yourself at risk.

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We don't see people take those risks and

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that's to be expected.

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A lot of infrastructure makes it so that

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if you want to, say, ride a bike

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to commute, you have to go on the

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roadway.

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This means that most of the people you

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see on bikes will be able-bodied men,

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15 to 50.

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Even an old person on an e-bike,

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even if that e-bike is fast, is

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not going to take the lane on a

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stroad where cars are going 45 miles per

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hour.

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You're not going to see a 10-year

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-old girl on rollerblades in the middle of

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downtown, in the middle of the roadway.

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It's not going to happen.

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I don't want people to put themselves at

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risk and do daredevil things, but these acts

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aren't daredevil-ish.

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Rollerblading is not the most dangerous thing you

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can do.

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What makes it dangerous to do in public

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is that you have cars.

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If riding on roller skates is not safe,

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if X, Y, Z is not safe for

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your 12-year-old kid to do unsupervised,

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then doing X, Y, Z isn't safe.

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Right now, doing X, Y, Z may not

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be safe.

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I want to make it safe.

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I want to see it as safe.

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What I expect from other people is not

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to stand in the way of things that

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would make it safe.

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If people have to drive, also please be

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considerate.

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I've seen it way too many times where

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people get accustomed to thinking a certain way,

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and it's not because these individuals are so

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different, us and them.

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It's the lifestyle.

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I know it feels good to talk about

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car brains, whatever, but nobody's irredeemable.

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I used to think a certain way because

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I had driven and it was the only

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feasible option, and it's all I ever knew.

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It's all my peers had ever known.

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It makes you think a certain way.

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It makes you do things that are really

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quite illogical.

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You may be the person who passes me.

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When I'm riding my bike, if there's no

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bike lane, if there were, I would take

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it.

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But if there's none on the path I'm

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going to the place I'm going, I'm going

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to have to be in the roadway.

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Sometimes you might be that person who has

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to go around me.

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You go around, swerve back, and then slam

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on the brakes because there's a red light

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50 feet ahead.

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It was not necessary to pass me like

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that, but it's almost ingrained to do things

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like that and you start seeing things in

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a different way.

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It's not because you are a bad person.

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It's not any of that.

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Any human in a certain situation will behave

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a certain way because of the environment around

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you.

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I think that's a very important thing to

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remember.

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We should be looking at how the system

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shapes behavior.

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When it comes to, say, international relations, there

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are two extremes, you could say.

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Those who just see it as foreign policy,

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the aggregation of foreign policy in many countries,

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and those who see it as completely structural,

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that the dynamics of the world condition everybody.

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Everybody's going to act the same regardless of

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what their citizenry, their history, perceptions are like.

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I think the truth is in the middle,

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but if I had to choose a side,

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I would go with the structural side.

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A theorist within international relations is Kenneth Waltz.

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He argued that what he studied was not

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foreign policy, it was international politics.

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It was a different beast.

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Within structural realism, you had some people who

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disagreed about the best way to protect yourself,

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but the fundamental thing was that war was

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going to be possible and likely when you

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have an environment where there's no one to

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turn to, it's self-help.

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You are completely on your own.

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That's what every country is in the world.

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It is really on its own.

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There is no guarantee that your allies will

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help you, that a world police will help

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you.

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You're on your own.

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So your country, no matter what, your country

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is always going to think about its own

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survival.

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That is going to shape a lot of

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behavior.

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You'll still have diversity of behavior within those

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parameters.

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I think that's very important, but certain actions

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are going to be more likely.

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Certain actions, events are going to be possible,

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some impossible.

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You can analogize too with sports, say with

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American football, which by the way, is called

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that because it's played on foot, not on

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a horseback, not because foot doesn't kick.

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American football, you could have the quarterback choose

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to pass the ball, to run it, but

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the quarterback cannot walk out of bounds, run

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out of bounds, get up after being tackled

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with association football or soccer.

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You can kick the ball, you can do

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many things.

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You can trap it with your foot, you

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can catch a free throw with your chest,

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have it go down before you and dribble

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it, move it, pass it, shoot it.

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But if you're not the goalkeeper, you cannot

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pick up the ball with your hands.

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There are certain parameters.

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What you can do is limited by the

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rules of the game.

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The built environment is very similar to that.

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What we can do, what we cannot do

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is fixed by the game itself.

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To make another analogy with political studies, social

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movements.

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Some of the earlier literature on that from

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the 1950s saw the civil rights movement in

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its infancy as something of a pathology, something

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that individuals did when they had nothing better

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to do.

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They were looking at things very individualistically.

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They did not conceive of a group dynamic

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or society as a whole changing in the

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same way.

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They saw these issues always with racism as

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individual pathologies.

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I would say that's an outdated, wrong, and

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itself, yeah, it does border on itself racism

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and in many cases goes explicitly racist.

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Culture can be a good way of understanding

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why people do what they do.

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But culture does not exist in a vacuum.

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It's the result of our environment.

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Our environment itself too is part of our

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culture.

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Our environment too is decided by the culture.

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It's a circular relationship, but we always have

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to mind that structure and not make it

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completely about ideas and culture because then it's

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a slippery slope to thinking about the ideas

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in one's head.

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And then we get to talking about individuals.

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Even allies within these conversations about urbanism, town

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planning, they may say, "Oh, I agree with

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you. We should have more bicycle riding. It

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should be safe. This should be the case.

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But that's a big ask of people," or

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they say people should be different.

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"I'm frustrated!" And maybe that person does not

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ever drive and wants everybody else to make

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the same virtuous decision.

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That's not really going to change everything.

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We still need people like that, but they

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alone cannot change the whole of society.

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And changing everybody to become a bike rider

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might build a constituency for the new bike

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lane, but that's not going to make the

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bike lane happen.

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You're going to have to turn those beliefs

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into group action to agitate for the things

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you want.

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And it's not just want, it's also need.

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If we're going to have a different way

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of doing things, which we might have to

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regardless of what we want, because the finances

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of the post-World War II suburban sprawl

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00:14:56.160 --> 00:14:58.880
experiment, those costs are not sustainable.

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Environmental problems, cost of oil and on and

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on.

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We're going to have to see a different

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way of doing things.

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So this is about need.

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00:15:07.120 --> 00:15:08.940
We need it to be safe to do

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00:15:08.940 --> 00:15:09.680
certain things.

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We need it to be sensible to do

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00:15:12.080 --> 00:15:12.720
certain things.

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If we want people's behaviors to change, we

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have to change the incentives.

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We cannot ignore reality.

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A good thing to remember when you assess

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if doing XYZ is safe or not is

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to ask if you would let your 12

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00:15:25.300 --> 00:15:27.520
-year-old kid do that unsupervised.

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00:15:27.900 --> 00:15:29.900
If you do not feel comfortable with that,

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then that activity is not safe.

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But then you have to ask, why is

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that activity unsafe?

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00:15:34.880 --> 00:15:37.820
Is walking, is riding a bike really that

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dangerous compared to driving?

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No.

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00:15:40.260 --> 00:15:42.960
For drivers in cars and for people on

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the roadway too.

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00:15:43.800 --> 00:15:47.000
They cause 40,000 deaths per year in

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00:15:47.000 --> 00:15:50.620
America and many, many more serious injuries.

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Remember, you could lose an arm and a

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00:15:53.160 --> 00:15:54.880
leg literally and still live.

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Deaths alone does not come close to capturing

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00:15:57.580 --> 00:15:59.420
the amount of damage to human lives.

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And if you want to get into it,

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00:16:01.320 --> 00:16:02.140
property damage.

427
00:16:02.320 --> 00:16:04.440
I don't want to have a society where

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00:16:04.440 --> 00:16:06.880
a car could go crashing into a pharmacy

429
00:16:06.880 --> 00:16:08.020
at any moment.

430
00:16:08.300 --> 00:16:10.960
That's not a rational way to set up

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00:16:10.960 --> 00:16:13.220
your society, to have that be a thing

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00:16:13.220 --> 00:16:13.900
that happens.

433
00:16:14.120 --> 00:16:15.340
It's not a fact of life.

434
00:16:15.420 --> 00:16:18.400
It does not happen regularly in Europe and

435
00:16:18.400 --> 00:16:18.740
Asia.

436
00:16:18.740 --> 00:16:20.440
It's a very American thing.

437
00:16:20.600 --> 00:16:22.920
That's not about the individuals being bad.

438
00:16:23.240 --> 00:16:25.200
If that person is in his 90s and

439
00:16:25.200 --> 00:16:28.160
shouldn't be driving, well, okay, how else is

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00:16:28.160 --> 00:16:30.220
this person going to get to the pharmacy?

441
00:16:30.440 --> 00:16:33.180
You've built an environment where the only way

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00:16:33.180 --> 00:16:35.120
for this 90-year-old man to reach

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00:16:35.120 --> 00:16:37.240
the pharmacy to get the drugs he needs,

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00:16:37.480 --> 00:16:40.800
his heart medication, or say his wife's ankle

445
00:16:40.800 --> 00:16:42.700
brace is to drive 20 miles.

446
00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:44.900
Well, of course, this is going to happen.

447
00:16:45.060 --> 00:16:47.320
You don't stop it by turning everybody into

448
00:16:47.320 --> 00:16:47.820
a homebody.

449
00:16:47.820 --> 00:16:50.680
You don't stop it by expecting everyone to

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00:16:50.680 --> 00:16:51.620
be a perfect driver.

451
00:16:52.020 --> 00:16:53.540
What you're going to send that 90-year

452
00:16:53.540 --> 00:16:54.660
-old to driving school again?

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With all these decisions, we have to remember

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that we can't just say, "Oh, well, it's

455
00:16:59.560 --> 00:17:00.960
your freedom to do this or that."

456
00:17:01.080 --> 00:17:03.300
Your freedom to drive wherever you want in

457
00:17:03.300 --> 00:17:05.440
a 1.5, 2-ton or

458
00:17:05.440 --> 00:17:08.720
3-ton vehicle is only possible because everybody

459
00:17:08.720 --> 00:17:10.200
else is paying for it.

460
00:17:10.480 --> 00:17:13.560
The government is building all these highways, this

461
00:17:13.560 --> 00:17:15.540
free parking and saying, hey, look, this is

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00:17:15.540 --> 00:17:16.020
for you.

463
00:17:16.020 --> 00:17:17.579
Of course, people are going to choose to

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00:17:17.579 --> 00:17:19.420
do that, but their choice to get the

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00:17:19.420 --> 00:17:21.420
biggest car possible affects others.

466
00:17:21.819 --> 00:17:24.020
It takes space from others, it blocks the

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00:17:24.020 --> 00:17:27.099
sidewalks where people who use wheelchairs need the

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00:17:27.099 --> 00:17:27.440
space.

469
00:17:27.640 --> 00:17:28.600
Oh, just go around.

470
00:17:28.940 --> 00:17:30.120
Oh, just go in the grass.

471
00:17:30.320 --> 00:17:32.180
No, if you're in a motorized wheelchair, that's

472
00:17:32.180 --> 00:17:33.680
not an option at all.

473
00:17:34.000 --> 00:17:36.460
The point is that all these decisions interact

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00:17:36.460 --> 00:17:39.080
and they affect other people and nobody is

475
00:17:39.080 --> 00:17:40.940
making decisions completely alone.

476
00:17:41.180 --> 00:17:42.860
If somebody is buying a too-big truck,

477
00:17:43.120 --> 00:17:45.540
it's because of advertising, because of peer groups,

478
00:17:45.540 --> 00:17:48.220
because of incentives, because of lanes that are

479
00:17:48.220 --> 00:17:50.200
12 feet wide on the roadways instead of

480
00:17:50.200 --> 00:17:51.000
eight feet wide.

481
00:17:51.460 --> 00:17:52.760
A good way to remember all of this

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00:17:52.760 --> 00:17:54.880
is that no one is an island.

483
00:17:55.580 --> 00:17:57.580
Opening theme music by Computer Music All-Stars,

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00:17:57.820 --> 00:17:59.700
"May the Chords Be With You," released 2018,

485
00:18:00.060 --> 00:18:01.620
available on the Free Music Archive.

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00:18:01.700 --> 00:18:03.420
Closing theme from the Korea Copyright Commission.

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00:18:03.800 --> 00:18:06.420
A 2022 performance of samul-nori music, available

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00:18:06.420 --> 00:18:09.940
at Gongyu Madang, LSMBG 0704.

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Logo art by Kyle Keswick of Keswick Design

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00:18:12.280 --> 00:18:14.280
Company in Plattsburgh, New York, with edits for

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contrast and color. Recorded in Plattsburgh, New York.

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Copyright 2025 by Sae Ong Jee Ma LLC.