Jon Jon Wesolowski — The Happy Urbanist, content creator, and Chattanooga community leader — is in good traffic for a conversation about the conversation itself. Jon Jon is the most effective creator of entry-level, accessible urbanism content. He's bringing in new ears and minds at a rapid rate, and the collective is better because of it. We also talk the upward trajectory in Chattanooga, as well as recent worldwide travels.

We discuss:

04:32 — Urbanism in media.
08:13 — Experiencing urban infrastructure firsthand, as a classroom.
09:09 — Things cars broke.
13:26 — Recent European family travels and derived insights for Tennessee.
17:20 — The Happy Urbanist: Jon Jon’s bet on optimism.
18:07 — Creating engaging urban planning content.
19:10 — A video about guardrails, and other accessible entry points into the conversation.
28:39 — The charm of Chattanooga, Tennessee: a burgeoning walkable city.
29:11 — The potential of a city like Chattanooga.
32:22 — Economic versus environmental benefits of urbanism.
37:54 — The anarchist story of Athens, Greece.
48:00 — Historical urban narratives: Athens and Ljubljana.
49:02 — A commute in Athens.


Further context:

On guardrails.
Things cars broke (on Instagram).
The Chattanooga Urbanist Society.
When anarchy intersects with urbanism, in Athens, Greece.⁠


Connecting with Jon Jon:

⁠On TikTok.
⁠On Instagram.⁠


Connecting with me, Brad:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠On Instagram.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠On TikTok⁠⁠.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠On LinkedIn⁠⁠.