You may know the actor Nick Offerman as the gruff city parks director Ron Swanson on the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation or from his turn as the survivalist Bill on the HBO series The Last of Us, but he also has a lot to say about how people get around, share public space, and relate to nature. In his book Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside, Nick takes a wry and philosophical approach to our stewardship of Planet Earth, the value of working with one’s hands, and the many problems with the massive agricultural systems on which we all depend. Nick Offerman joins The War on Cars to talk about his experience biking for transportation in New York City and Los Angeles, his views on masculinity and conspicuous consumption, and why the best way to explore an unfamiliar city is at the speed of a good walk.

You can find the full transcript of this episode here.

This episode is produced with support from Cleverhood. Listen to the episode for the latest 15% discount code.

***Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive access to ad-free versions of all our episodes, special bonus content and stickers!***

LINKS:

Read Nick Offerman’s Call of the Candy-Ass in Outside Online.

Pick up a copy of Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside as well as books by other guests of The War on Cars at our official Bookshop.org page.

Read Pastoral Song by James Rebanks. (Published in the UK as English Pastoral.)

Watch the film Sacred Cow, narrated by Nick Offerman. And read the book!

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Pick up official podcast tees and other merch in our official store.

This episode was edited by Ali Lemer. It was recorded by Felix Levine. Our theme music is by Nathaniel Goodyear.

TheWarOnCars.org

In episode 103, we looked at depictions of cyclists in movies such as The 40-Year-Old Virgin and TV shows such as Arrested Development and asked, “Why Does Hollywood Hate Bikes?” Our co-host Sarah Goodyear unfortunately missed that discussion, so in this exclusive bonus just for patrons of The War on Cars she brings some recent pop culture specimens to examine: the NBC sitcom American Auto and the BBC soap The Split. We also respond to listener comments about some of the movies and television shows we missed last time out — including Stranger Things, The Goonies, and Breaking Away — and follow up on some new bike-related developments on the feel-good show Ted Lasso.

In this teaser, Sarah offers some thoughts on NBC’s American Auto starring Ana Gasteyer.

All car trips begin and end with a place to park, making a parking space “nothing less than the link between driving and life itself.” In his new book, Paved Paradise, Henry Grabar, a staff writer at Slate, argues that the need to accommodate the short- and long-term storage of countless big metal boxes on wheels is a determinative force in the design of cities, the shape of buildings, the cost of housing and even the health of our planet. Deeply reported, highly entertaining and filled with colorful stories and characters from the worlds of affordable housing development, government and even organized crime, Paved Paradise is a refreshing look at a subject that explains the world.

You can find the full transcript of this episode here.

This episode is produced with support from Harvard University Graduate School of Design Executive Education and Radpower Bikes.

***Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive access to ad-free versions of all our episodes, special bonus content and stickers.***

LINKS:

Buy Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World by Henry Grabar and other books by podcast guests at The War on Cars Bookshop.org page.

Follow Henry Grabar on Twitter.

Read more from Henry at Slate.

Pick up official podcast tees, sticker packs and other merch in our official store.

Attend Micromobility Europe in Amsterdam in June or Micromobility America in San Francisco in October and save 20% on tickets by using the links.

This episode was edited by Doug Gordon. It was recorded at the Brooklyn Podcasting Studio by Josh Wilcox. Our theme music is by Nathaniel Goodyear.

TheWarOnCars.org

Weird things happen when you’re an investigative reporter trying to cover an international oil giant like ExxonMobil. Your plane tickets are mysteriously canceled, your hotel room gets broken into, and the local reporter that you’ve hired is offered a lucrative job to work on something else. In this special bonus episode for Patreon subscribers, investigative journalist and podcaster Amy Westervelt tells us what it was like to report and produce the new season of her podcast, Drilled. It’s called “Light Sweet Crude.” In it, she takes us to the tiny South American nation Guyana where, in 2015, ExxonMobil discovered one of the world’s largest off-shore oil reserves. Seemingly overnight, Guyana began transforming from an international environmental leader and model of sustainable development to one of the world’s fastest growing petrostates.

Why start a brand new oil industry in the middle of a climate crisis in a country that is particularly vulnerable to climate impacts? Do wealthy, western, oil-guzzling nations have any right to tell a nation like Guyana to keep their fossil fuels in the ground? And once a project like this gets going, is there anything that can be done to stop it?

***This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive, ad-free bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars.***

In Huntsville, Alabama, it’s illegal to play ball on any street, alley, or sidewalk. In Lewiston, Maine, pedestrians must keep to the right half of the crosswalk while crossing the street. And in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, bicyclists are strictly prohibited from any kind of “fancy riding.” If these laws sound vague, arbitrary, and difficult to enforce, well, that might just be the point. In a groundbreaking new report, urban planner Charles Brown painstakingly identifies the vast array of transportation-related laws that are used almost exclusively to limit the mobility and freedom of Black Americans while providing no real benefit to public safety. Brown gives this repressive policy regime a name. He calls it: Arrested Mobility.

You can find a full transcript of this episode here.

This episode is produced with support from Harvard University Graduate School of Design Executive Education and Cleverhood.

*** Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive access to ad-free versions of all our episodes, special bonus content and stickers! ***

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On our last episode, we mentioned the brief cameo that a Brompton folding bicycle had on season 2 of Ted Lasso and why that bicycle model in particular was a very deliberate choice meant to convey something special about the character who rides it, Dr. Sharon Fieldstone.

For this bonus episode just for Patreon supporters, we talk with Brompton’s Managing Director, Will Butler-Adams, about the chance meeting that brought him to the iconic British bicycle company, where the bike industry fits into safe streets advocacy, his thoughts on building cities for people and why his company’s iconic and quirky machine is the “Swiss Army knife of bikes.”

***This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive, ad-free bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars.***

Chances are, if a character rides a bicycle in a movie or TV show that character is a huge loser. From The 40-Year-Old Virgin to Arrested Development, bicycles are frequently used to represent immaturity, otherness and misfortune. Thankfully, things are changing — at least a little. Witness the Citibike-riding women of Broad City or Dr. Sharon Fieldstone, the sports psychologist who counsels the cast of Ted Lasso after commuting to work on her Brompton folding bike. Journalist Nitish Pahwa of Slate joins us to discuss the ways in which Hollywood and other parts of our entertainment-industrial complex use bicycles and cars to signify power and status.

You can find the full transcript of this episode here.

This episode is produced with support from Rad Power Bikes and Cleverhood.

***Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive access to ad-free versions of all our episodes, special bonus content and stickers!***

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What if we told you that some of the biggest, most exciting, and potentially transformative victories in The War on Cars are being fought and won these days by people working on affordable housing? In this special Patreon-only episode of the podcast we are talking to one of those people — Matt Lewis, communications director of California YIMBY. In the last few years, California YIMBY has launched an impressive barrage of legislation aimed at making housing more affordable by challenging the mid-20th century “California Dream” of single-family, automobile-dependent, suburban sprawl. Housing, transportation, climate, equity and inclusivity… For YIMBYs it’s all the same issue.

***This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive, ad-free bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars.***

“15-minute cities” are having a moment, and not exactly in a good way. How did a mundane urban planning concept turn into the latest grist for the culture-war mill? Why does the idea of making it easier to walk to school or the grocery store have some people afraid that they won’t be able to leave their homes for more than 15 minutes? And why do some think this is all a plot by the World Economic Forum to force people to “own nothing and be happy”? We break down this conspiracy theory and ask if we can ever get back to reality.

You can find the full transcript of this episode here.

This episode is produced with support from Radpower Bikes and Cleverhood.

***Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive access to ad-free versions of all our episodes, special bonus content and stickers!***

Friends of The War on Cars receive 20% off tickets to Micromobility Europe, the world’s largest conference for small electric vehicles, June 8 & 9th in Amsterdam.

Pick up official podcast tees and other merch in our official store.

Buy books by podcast guests and check out our book recommendations at our official Bookshop.org page.

This episode was edited by Ali Lemer. Our theme music is by Nathaniel Goodyear.

TheWarOnCars.org

Photo credit: Mitchel Raphael Kern

EPISODE 101: FEMINIST CITY WITH LESLIE KERN

Cities have almost always been designed by men, prioritizing men’s needs as defined by the traditional male-female binary. But as scholar and author Leslie Kern writes in her  book, Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-Made World, a truly feminist city could be, “an ongoing experiment in living differently, living better, and living more justly in an urban world.” Sarah talks with Dr. Kern about  how gender influences the way we move through our streets, and how adopting a feminist perspective could make our cities more humane and livable for everyone, regardless of gender identity.

You can find the full transcript of this episode here.

This episode is sponsored by Cleverhood. Receive 15% off anything in the Cleverhood store using the special coupon code in this episode. Good for a limited time only!

***Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive exclusive access to ad-free versions of all our episodes, special bonus content and free stickers!***

LINKS:

Find out more about Dr. Leslie Kern’s work.

Buy Feminist City and other books by podcast guests at our official Bookshop.org page.

Pick up official  The War on Cars merch in our store.

This episode was produced and edited by Sarah Goodyear. Our theme music is by Nathaniel Goodyear.

TheWarOnCars.org