57 / Active American towns / with John Simmerman

John Simmerman — Founder of Active Towns — is in good traffic to talk the push for more active towns across the U.S. John travels the world's cities via active mobility, and creates stellar content to summarize the trips. By trade, he's an exercise scientist that believes in the power of the built environment as an avenue for solving some of our most pertinent health challenges (obesity, isolation, etc...). We discuss: 00:00 The active towns concept. 02:03 John's background and career. 05:37 Transportation challenges in Honolulu. 17:41 Empathy and behavior change. 21:59 Mobility choice and infrastructure. 36:54 Evaluating active communities. 39:27 Categorizing active towns. 41:35 Emerging active towns. 42:47 Latent active towns and their transformation. 44:19 Success stories: Oklahoma City and Austin. 56:10 Wide and inclusive infrastructure. 01:00:26 Impact of active commutes. 01:02:39 Reframing mobility and the commuting. 01:05:30 Wrapping up. For context: activetowns.org The YouTube. Connect with John: On YouTube. On Instagram. On LinkedIn. On Patreon.