Episode 10: Mayor Greg Ballard

You can’t put former Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard in a box. In 2007, the former career Marine upset a two-term Democrat incumbent, running as a Republican in a majority-Democrat city. He quickly developed an identity as a genuine, low-key leader who brought an nuts-and-bolts approach to running Indianapolis, and he quickly adopted a vision of making Indianapolis a more sustainable city that embraced alternative modes of transportation (mass transit expansion, bike infrastructure), renewable energy (setting a goal of moving city government to an all-electric vehicle fleet), and mixed-use development. He continues to be a national advocate for renewable energy, and he published his book Less Oil or More Caskets: The National Security Argument for Moving Away from Oil in 2019, and he continues to teach at the University of Indianapolis. Mayor Ballard and I catch up, talk about his years as Mayor, and he talks about why the United States needs to get more aggressive to move away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy sources.