Bottom-Up Shorts: How to Build Momentum as a Local Advocate

In this Bottom-Up Short, Norm is joined by Christian Schick, the leader of Strong Towns RVA, a Local Conversation in Richmond, Virginia. The group has built a lot of momentum in the past year, and Schick talks about how they did that in a productive and helpful way, particularly while juggling local elections.

  • Norm Van Eeden Petersman 0:06

    Thanks for tuning in to this. Bottom up short, I'm Norm with strong towns, and I've met 1000s of strong towns members now, and after hearing their stories, I'm inspired to say to others, I've got to tell you about so and so, that's what. Again, this bottom up short is all about. A quick introduction to Christian Schick of strong towns, Richmond, Virginia, who is doing really exciting things in his community together with other members of the strong towns local conversation there. They are engaging in their community. They are meaningfully intervening in various public discussions, and they are helping and equipping many people to be able to take action in their community in ways that are inspiring but also incremental, allowing for the next smallest thing to be done within the community. And so if you like what you hear, please let us know. And as always, take care and take care of your place. Christian, it is so good to have you on the podcast, and please share for us, what is it that you and the other leaders of strong towns Richmond, Virginia, are doing strong RVA as you describe yourselves. What are you doing and what are some of the highlights that you shared with us of the year that has passed and what lies ahead? Yeah,

    Christian Schick 1:12

    well, 2024 was a big year, not just for strong towns RVA, but for Richmond. It was an election year. We got a new mayor and some of the city council members were there as well. And one of the big things that I think really kind of made an impact in 2024 was the way we as a group, and many people helped with this, sent thank you notes to outgoing election officials, including the outgoing mayor, just kind of highlighting the ways that Richmond is going in the right direction, the ways that, even if we didn't like all of the policies of a previous mayor or administration that we highlighted, those policies that we felt like were part of the strong towns mission, that show that Richmond is developing In a small, incremental way towards better, more walkable communities. And as well as during 2024 we were able to have Chuck Marone here for the housing trap book tour. That was a super exciting two day event where we included a walking tour in a podcast recording to be able to get Chuck's thoughts on our city recorded in a studio and a really great time to just kind of make the connection between the ideas presented within the book to specifically the Richmond environment and very specific steps that we as a city should be taking to reform our zoning code and support better housing development and more affordable units to be built in our city.

    Norm Van Eeden Petersman 2:46

    What stands out to me is you're doing things that are very accessible to regular folks within the community. Can you describe maybe some of the journeys or pathways of other members of your group that have come in and how it is that you're helping them to really take note of the things that are occurring in the community, and feel like that barrier to entry has actually been brought way down in order to participate in what you're doing.

    Christian Schick 3:08

    Yeah, well, I always start with describing my own workflow, which is that Monday nights, Monday nights are my night of the week to work on strong towns. It puts a very solid time box around the time that I spend alone in front of my computer working on like, what the next local conversation will look like. And I talked about that with with other people as well, so that it's clear that, like, what we do to impact our community can sometimes just be as simple as one night a week working on the ways that we can plan things out and work better. What I've been impressed with in our group is that we've have a lot of students, a lot of younger people that are very much interested in applying the strong towns principles, and those people have found ways to connect to the other groups in Richmond that are also advocating for similar things, and they're oftentimes, they're bringing in those additional ideas from other groups such as yimby. We have a partnership for smarter growth Coalition. We have a rapid transit advocacy group for better transit advocacy, and it really kind of becomes this well oiled, well connected machine where we're not working in isolation, because everyone is doing what they can to pay attention to the many different ways, the many different facets of building a strong town in Richmond. I

    Norm Van Eeden Petersman 4:36

    appreciate that as just a core tip as well, because one of the things we recommend for our groups is to identify a regular time to meet, but in the interim period between when you're having, say, monthly meeting. For us in Delta, we'd meet on the third Thursday of each month, but make sure that there's also that time for social media, time for if you're keeping up a website, but also that reaching out. And building those connections with other people, and setting up opportunities that people want to participate in. And you've taken some approaches. I appreciated the way that you said, we're connecting with public officials and hosting them, but we don't play any role in officially endorsing them. Do you want to talk a little bit how you've navigated through a local election, and maybe some of the lessons and insights you picked up there. Yeah.

    Christian Schick 5:22

    So what I found worked best as the format was dual speakers planning dual speakers for a local conversation. And this was actually an idea that a member of our group, Eric Bootsma, had actually asked if he could speak. And I was like, Well, this is really a good format. He wanted to talk about potentially removing or altering the downtown expressway that obliterated around like 700 homes and businesses in the 1970s that goes straight through our downtown and kind of replace it with a much more vibrant Boulevard option. And so I said, Yeah, that's a great idea. He could speak at that meeting, and then we can follow it up with the person running for office. And that kind of gives a particular topic that the elected official can speak to. And it kind of prevents the elected official from perhaps treating the local conversation as a platform for whatever thing they want to talk about. Instead, they're given the opportunity to just kind of dialog with that point and Andreas Addison was the particular candidate that that was there to speak to the downtown expressway. He was able to, like, take that energy and run with it and say yes and and present a lot of similar ideas that that he has, like supported while he was a city council representative, but also like ideas that seemed like very feasible, that no matter who was elected to Mayor, we as a group could support those ideas. And it was, it was really expansive and opened up my eyes to a lot of potential opportunities.

    Norm Van Eeden Petersman 6:56

    And in addition to opening up new doors, I'd love to can you share the emails that you sent to outgoing folks, what was the sort of message there? And how did people receive that?

    Christian Schick 7:07

    Well, we so in the wake of the election, I felt that it was important for our group to focus on the positives. The several of the people that were my favorites didn't necessarily get a get elected, and also the general draw and distraction of national politics is always present. And so I wanted to kind of take that opportunity to make sure that we as a group represented a positive voice in our community. So I collected up all the emails of the various city council members that were outgoing, as well as ones for various districts for all the different places around Richmond. And I said, you know, if you're in these districts, if you're able to write something, just write something along the lines of highlighting these, these and these issues that we have seen positive progress on Richmond recently, a couple years back, eliminated parking minimums, and so that's a very clear thing that we can say the previous administration either supported or didn't block. You know, there was, there's a positive movement in in repealing those parking minimums, and our elected officials deserve to get. Thanks for that. Richmond is a bit of a larger town, smaller city, so I didn't hear back from any representative in particular, but I hope that they appreciated it.

    Norm Van Eeden Petersman 8:35

    And I think one of the things that stands out if you go and check out the social media feed for strong towns, RVa, or check out their website, strong townsarva.com, is that you have a positive vision. You are for a stronger community, rather than against the things that maybe are an irritant or a trouble or, you know, a real weight within the community and and there is room for opposition, you know, highway expansion projects or things like that that come across the radar. But I love the way that you have articulated a positive vision of what you want to see within the community. And can you share with us a little bit about who you are, like you are someone that has taken up the reins and taken on this responsibility. But what is it about you and that either is remarkable or ordinary that has led you to this point? Yeah,

    Christian Schick 9:18

    I always love the things about me that I can say that I feel like are fairly ordinary. I'm a dad, I work full time for a white collar job as a UX designer, and I think that's a very common job description, job situation for a lot of people. What got me into strong Towns was really the moment that I bought into my city, literally buying a house property, and starting to pay attention to local politics. I'd always enjoyed biking, and I always saw it as a very frugal mode of transportation. So I was never really concerned with like, high levels of government spend to subsidize. As biking as I saw it, and really when I started to pay attention to local politics, is when I kind of shifted that mindset and realized that there were many things that made biking frugal for me personally, that collectively us as a city, being more bikeable community, would contribute to a more frugal bottom line for our city and our development, and that was kind of the gateway into being able to understand a much broader, expansive, strong towns approach. And what drew me into that further approach was the idea that, like I was in this community, it does require cooperation, it requires diverse opinions, and I live right next door to my neighbor, and I can talk to him about these issues and maybe get a completely different perspective, even if well meaning, and he likes me and, you know, and is generally supportive of me biking, he might have different opinions on various things that develop in our community. And it was really the strong towns approach and the strong towns emphasis on listening that really made me feel like it was, it was a movement that I could join and feel like I wasn't supporting, you know, a particular direction, but that I was supporting the value of my neighborhoods, my neighbors and their opinions and in a more positive development for everyone. Yeah,

    Norm Van Eeden Petersman 11:16

    and a question I'd love to end with is, you know, what is it that gives you hope? And I think you're already touching on many of those threads, but what particularly gives you hope here,

    Christian Schick 11:27

    as a dad, having a child gives me a lot of hope for my community, because it puts a time perspective on many of the things that we work on. So that idea that who I'm working for is is my is my children and my community. But you know, many times it is for the sake of building a positive development for for my children and and that kind of gives me a certain sense of perspective that then that that does give me a lot of hope. And I would say that the second thing that gives me hope is I do believe that Richmond is moving in a very positive direction. I do believe that that we're a city that has has survived. We're in the kind of like the cradle of of the English colonization of America, kind of the cradle of what eventually became defined as America. We're a fairly old area, and we've we've lived through several developments, and will continue to thrive and be resilient long into the future, having built on, on our on our survivorship of very various eras, various eras that have tried to destroy our city through through various means of including actual wars and racism and you name it. It's a very complex history. I encourage anyone to look it up, but we've survived it, and that's what makes Richmond a really like a place that I believe is built to last

    Norm Van Eeden Petersman 12:55

    and has that durable nature to it. At the thing that, you know, the suburban experiment threatens, but actually is something that we really still need to take hold of. Is, you know, what is it about that traditional development pattern, as well as sort of its adaptation even into today, that is going to make the difference in ensuring the community in the city stands for a long time, and I think strong towns RVA is part of that connective tissue, or that bringing together of key elements within the community to make that happen. So with that, I'm so glad, Christian, that you were able to connect with us today and to everybody that's listening. I hope that you're also inspired to look around you as as Christian has said, there are so many things about you which which can be ordinary and yet are so valuable in this project of building stronger and more healthy and more robust communities. And so thank you for listening to bottom up shorts. Take care and take care of your places.

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