Episode 1 - Golden, CO, housing, etc.
2020-01-13-broadcast-what-is-to-come
:Happy Thursday!
It's been a while since I've written you anything. you'll start hearing from me once every two weeks, and occasionally weekly.
I'm settling in on a structure. Each episode will contain short elements related to:
- 🛣 🏡Housing, Urbanism, and my home town of Golden, CO. I've spent most of my spare brain cycles in the last 2 years thinking on this topic, and you have a role to play in making the world a less-bad place. I'll explain the role you have to play as we go. 😎
- 👩💻 Software development, especially as it relates to "non-software" topics. Software is just a tool, it can be applied to many problems, and has much to learn from other domains.
- ⁉️ Questions and requests. I'll usually have some specific questions, or I will make specific requests.
I'm going to publish a 2020 year-in-review soon. It's the hardest year-end review I've ever sat down to try to write.
Housing and Urbanism 🏡🏫🚋🛣
I have a goal for you and me, with "housing and urbanism". First, I will explain that "urban design and development" is absolutely riveting, full of more drama, intrigue, manipulation, fortunes won and lost, murder, crime, and excitement than nearly any other domain you've crossed paths with in the last year.
This is a tall claim, and if you're willing to give me some time to explain it to you, I think you'll come to agree with me.
Step 1 is to start sharing why this domain matters in the first place. It will take a few episodes to
I want to explain to you why these two visions of a built environment exist, and why the nice one is illegal:
Compare these two pictures:
I'll explain why the latter image is illegal, and why the former is subsidized, in the next episode. This legal/illegal distinction is critical to the issues we all care about in the USA, and the issues that have dominated the news over the last few years.
Earlier this year, I wrote Full Copy of 'The Atlanta Zone Plan' from 1922. I'll explain more about that later.
👩💻 Software Development
I'm a "software developer", or at least according to LinkedIn.
You might not be a software developer, or care that much about software. I don't actually care that much about software, either, even though I am (again) a software developer.
Software is not the end goal. When I "write code", I care about what the code I write enables me or others to accomplish.
If you're not a software developer, please keep reading this section of future emails. I will always write about software in an accessible way, and when I make deep dives into technical topics that are not interesting to most people (including most software developers), I'll label it appropriately.
Earlier this year, I wrote How To Write A Letter of Recommendation for Yourself
⁉️ Questions and Requests
Every email will include a few questions for you, the reader, and possibly some requests.
In general, questions will be related to obtaining feedback, letting me know if a certain thing I said made sense/resonated with you.
When I ask a question, it might be to help me plan out some upcoming writing projects. I tend to write highly specific pieces for a very small audience with an intent of driving substantial intellectual reorientation or real-world behavioral change.
For example, this year, I've written a few pieces that, combined, span probably 70 written pages. My quick math is that this year I wrote 30,000 words that have been read by almost no one, in terms of "internet scale", and I think this is the future of writing.
So, I will be asking you, friend, questions to help me guide what I work on. I'd like to write things that get read by more than 5 people, but I have no interest in ever being read by thousands/millions of people.
End Note
This brings us to the end of Episode 1. Gosh. I'm thrilled that this clocked in at less than 1000 words. (We're at 650 words right now).
Thanks for reading. As always, smash the reply button and tell me something! What's some unusual thing you've encountered recently?
- Josh
PS: Here's a random thing I wrote: Fred Roger's Method For Writing Scripts