‘Your City Could Be Better’: The Trick to Getting People To Volunteer — Presented By City Cast Las Vegas

Hey, CityCasters, we have a fun call-in episode of Your City could be better coming up in a few weeks, all about the dilemmas you have living in your city. And we want to hear your questions like, is your neighbor being rude? Is it okay to put your dog poop or other trash in a neighbor's trash can? Send in your city life conundrums by using the Google form in our show notes or by emailing us at your city could be better at citycast.fm. Now, On to the episode. This is your city could be better because it could be. I'm David Plotz. If you love your city and still complain about it, you're in the right place. How do you incentivize people to improve their community and help their neighbors? Taylor Leahy has been trying something unusual in Santa Cruz, California. Inspired by a waste exchange program in Curitiba, Brazil. Leahy has launched a bike exchange program and a waste cleanup effort that are a little bit different than the usual urban philanthropy. Taylor Leahy, welcome to your city could be better. Thank you for having me, David. It's good to see you. Did you, I saw you when I was talking about where you could put your trash. Did you have views on whether you can put your dog poop or your waist in a neighbor's trash can? I like to, I like the idea of respecting people's, you know, trash. But I also like, I also like clean streets. I also like clean public spaces. And if it works, I'll turn a blind eye. And I prefer the cleanliness over, you know, people holding dog poop for, you know, miles before they get back to wherever to throw it away. Okay. I don't think usually it's mild. It's usually somewhere short of mild. You're right. You're right. You're right. Okay. I mean, it could be in a car, though, if you're getting into a car and then driving home. Yes, I've done that. All right. Let us start in Brazil, not in Santa Cruz. You wrote a book about a program in Curitiba. What is it? How did you learn about it? And what struck you about it? In Kirchiba, from the 1970s to today, there's a program that existed, and this particular time in history, there was a lot of litter. And there weren't convenient ways for trash trucks from the city municipality to go fetch the litter, to collect it. And they said, if you were able to collect it and bring it to where we can receive it, we'll give you bus tokens. And sure enough, it worked really well. and people would start taking the bus, and there's a really popular bus system. Their BRT is studied all over the world. But something that wasn't really captured, or loosely captured at least, was that people would hang on to those bus tokens. They would earn more than they needed, and they started trading them one for one. They're pegged to the Rayal, subsidized to one Rayal per ride. And people would treat them like money, first amongst each other, and then at stores.

And so all of a sudden there was a secondary currency that was backed by public transit and was earned into existence by taking care of communities and taking care of the national environment. It was open to everyone to participate in. Meaning, even today, you and I could go travel to Brazil and choose to pick up a bunch of recyclables. Today, it's recyclables in exchange for local produce and farms. And we'd be allowed to participate. We don't need papers to show that we're residents or citizens. and be able to earn some of the rewards. So what you're describing is something which looks like it has two elements. One element is there's a kind of communal need, a public good that kind of needs to be created, cleaner streets, recycling that gets reused. And then a second element, which is there's a secondary currency, a kind of currency, a compensation for doing this public good that is outside the... just people getting dollars, it's something else. Why produce and why not money? Like, what would have happened had they said, if you bring recyclables, you will get the Brazilian currency, Rayal? What is the Brazilian currency? Real. You'll get reals. Why is it valuable that it be produce? Well, I think what's so special about the system and how it's designed, this greater system that is the combio verity, which is the name of the program, the Green Exchange. And... The idea is that you turn inward, you offer the resources, the offers the services and the goods that you have in your community to sort things out. So at that point in time, it was bus tokens, but it's also evolved to school supplies and as well as local produce. These are all essential needs for living life, and especially in urban life, to get around the city. So it was what the city had to offer, usually in surplus. There are plenty of spots in a bus. And based on the local farms within the city, it was easier to buy the surplus yield from these local farmers and distribute those. So it was more of what was at hand rather than something beyond a city. So like a national currency. Okay. Let's take it to Santa Cruz, California, very different from Curitiba, smaller, richer, American. You decided to adopt a version of this in Santa Cruz. So what problem did you seek to try to solve with a bike exchange for starters? For starters. So at first, you know, after finishing the book, my children's book, Cambio, I've just... had this great, you could call it expression, this urge to figure out if I could implement this in Santa Cruz. So I started scanning the culture and what it really values and what we might have abundance of. And next to surfing, there's bikes. There's mountain bikes. There's electric bikes. There's efforts to get people to use a ride share that was new to Santa Cruz as of the 2020s B-cycle.

I just decided to work off what was already existing in the community and have it also tied to a basic need, which is transportation. So I was sitting on multiple bikes that I wasn't riding, and I just judged that everyone else did too. So what if we could route these bikes to people that could use them and not have them sit idly in a garage or in a basement? So... I found B-cycle, and I just asked them, would you be willing to offer some ride passes, which I noticed that they were giving away to UCSC students, University of California Santa Cruz students, to get around town and to promote their service? And I said, what if you offered those as a reward in my idea to bring these bikes and move them around from donation, refurbishing, and giveaway? They said, yeah, absolutely. And eventually I assembled, you can imagine like the... the Avengers of Community Good and Santa Cruz and created this first proof of concept, which is the bike exchange. And what happened? How did it work? Who participated? What did they do? What did people get out of it? How is the community helped or not? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I broke everything down into these necessary roles. So we had a donation population that was the Santa Cruz Waldorf School as well as the community bike collective. And I needed mechanics to work on the bikes, care for these bikes and clean them up. And that was also from the community bike collective. And we worked with the housing authority as one of the giveaway communities. And so then with those three, I was able to, you know, that was the. primitive foundation, like, you know, the proto-social foundation of which, you know, something like an exchange could grow from, something maybe ongoing and regular. And one day, what happened was all the bikes were brought from the school. They, like, kind of be stored there until they're ready to a site that was the housing authority. And we would register them. We would, you know, take inventory. And then we'd reward them with a B-cycle ride pass. And all the mechanics would just get to work. And then once we had a nice group of finished bikes, we drove them off in this trailer to the Housing Authority building or a apartment complex. And we've just rolled them out and people could take whatever they want. They're theirs to have. And so what we had was just very, a very productive. a single event rather than these being done incrementally. In the past, the Community Bike Collective would receive bike donations and they would store them in their office. And eventually they would have a mechanic refurbishing party. And sometimes they would have people come and take those bikes. And sometimes they wouldn't. So what this did was just compile all this work and all this effort and resources that would normally sit idly and just get them completed and usable and out. So the element that doesn't seem to be here is there doesn't seem to be. So the bikes are created. The bikes are refurbished. So people are getting the good of the bike. But there isn't, there's no, there's not a currency. There's not a kind of thing of value that the people who are donating the bikes are really, I mean, they're getting a bike pass. But it's not quite, it's a little bit less rich, I would say, than a token or a fresh fruit, right?

someone that attended the first event, she reached out and said, I'm noticing, you know, all this, you know, all this litter in my part of the creek that empties out into the San Lorenzo River in Santa Cruz. I like to host a cleanup. And I was like, I will, like a grant, I will give you some resources. I'll have, you know, give you some supplies. If you are willing to document this trash and weigh it for me, I, they're good. And I think, you know, go for it. And so we had three different events in the end. We had this big centralized event where we had to take care of liability in the permit to do it downtown. We had this decentralized one that was a part of this greater cleanup day. And then we had this totally like a grant version where someone raised their hand and said, I'll take care of this. I can't believe you had to get a permit and insure something like that. That's, yeah. That's ridiculous. I mean, that alone seems like the city needs to deal with that issue. Yeah. If you're trying to, you're cleaning up the city, you know, why would you, why is that permissible activity? And their argument is like it slows down, it could slow down traffic, having people, you know, go from one centralized place to the extremities of the river. I, and they would have to include poured potty with some of these arguments. Get the fuck out. That is like, this is, wow, that's a really shocking thing to learn. That is government of Santa Cruz. You have a random listener out here who's learning about this. I'm genuinely shocked that you're putting this obstacle in the way of something like this. I hear you, and they are my community. And so future versions of this, I really want to include the city and say, your contribution would be waiving the permit, waiving liability, or, you know, taking care of it. And they could evaluate, just like I did for these previous ones, like this, by item, buy weight, this is worth it. And not to mention we're cleaning and raising the value of the downtown land. I don't know how well you can characterize this, but with the 102 people who came to the rainy cleanup, would you say that those are people who are the usual kind of volunteers in the community? Or was it a different set of people? So even someone that is cleaning up the river regularly on, you know, a day where you wake up and, you know, you get off the wrong side of the bed, your neck might be tight, you go, you know, I'll skip this one out. But with a little incentive. And hopefully the social aspect of seeing and being a part of something bigger, it's worth it. I know that there are so many people that clean the river for the first time. I personally have a good friend that was supporting me, but he came all the way from a nearby county to participate in the cleanup. And that's like, that really moves a needle. When you make this a more social event, you grow the reach and you create these incentives that span, that offer value and create. different forms of connection across different across geographies like that's that's something else have you seen any other communities or organizations or cities adopting a version of either what you've been doing or what curative has been doing

Do you have hope that this becomes, that this spreads like the Aspins of the West? I've heard of others. I haven't researched them as strongly as I could have or should have. And... And most of them are quiet and small. And they, again, a lot of this is turning inward. So it's not something we hear about on a national level most of the time. So I know they exist. But I don't know if I have playmates in other locations. It's your gut instinct that this. kind of model works well if the local government is involved and can provide resources or it really works well if it is a grassroots built up from the people who live here doing it for themselves and actually is independent of government. Due to the way taxes are collected and the power of the local government, it's become clunky to get things done with the city. And that being said, people are always asked to donate. They're always giving their time. I don't want big, bleeding, big hearts to just continue to bleed. I would love them to get some support and have that be on a higher level, whether if that's through a chamber of commerce or from like a city, from the local government. So I think it should be the local government. I'm biased because I just, I've got a taste of it when I visited Kirchiba. I'll say I like how boring it is when the city takes care of it compared to, you know, a flashy donor throwing in a bunch of money and, you know, puts their name on it. That, you know, agreeing to vote into that or to have it going and have everyone say, yeah, that's a good thing. We should keep doing that. That brings me, you know, a certain quality of life. I mean, I guess I think like, I hear you about boring. I also hear you about. the value of Boring. And I also hear you about the issues when it's dependent on some big donor. I guess I also, there's part of me that believes that one of the great achievements of communal life is. In fact, a great thing about American life in general is that we are able, because we have lots of non-governmental institutions, whether they're churches, rec leagues, volunteer organizations, professional associations. Like we're a nation that's filled, to Tocqueville noted this in 1830, we're a nation that's filled with these, with independent gatherings of people, collections of people, communities of people that are outside of. in fact, government. And I like the idea of, and I think people are willing to put more energy into something like that because they feel a sense of autonomy and control over it in a way they don't. If it's like, oh, the city, this is a city thing. The city's got it.

Yeah, I totally hear you. And I think in where we are, in American culture, where Santa Cruz is, I think it's got to be through a grassroots movement that it comes to that level. It grows into that level. And I absolutely agree. I thought about ways where we could have big events that are connected to festivals, that are connected to ways to like really create new experiences that. connected to all different parts of what goes on in the city. And I'm here for all of it. It's got to feel like it comes from the spirit of the residents and the people there. All right. Last question of the main segment here. What can our listeners in other cities, not Santa Cruz, take away from this conversation to make their own city better? So. Abstracting from the Compio Verdi, I just think they're just essentially community exchanges. And we know what it's like to do a bake sale, to do a food drive. I see a community exchange as being another tool that we could turn to to solve our community's needs. And to get them out and provide a structure for them is the first step. And I'll say, like, coming from Curitiba, I had a deep longing for... a village, the feeling of being in a village where I give something that serves the population, there's a way to do this. And I like to think that it's going to look different, but it's going to be doable in so many different neighborhoods, cities, and communities. All right, Taylor. Let's end with our word on the street segment. So we're going to talk about city dilemmas in an upcoming episode, as I mentioned at the top of the show. So here's an urban dilemma that you might face. We started this conversation talking about bikes. Is it okay if you live in an apartment building? Is it okay for people to store their bikes in vestibules or in common hallways?

I want to be okay. That tension between landlords and residents, it's going to be uncomfortable, and I hope it shifts in a way that promotes more walking and biking. I think I, even though I'm like a mega cyclist, I think I disagree. I think you, I don't. I don't think you can, that's like you're taking other people's public space. Now, there may, maybe, I mean, there are different circumstances. You can imagine an apartment building has some very big area that is not being used or you live at the last, you're like the last apartment at the end of the corridor or no one, you know, no one is walking by the space where you're putting your bike. But I, I kind of don't think it's okay to park your bike in a common area like that. I know what you mean. And I also believe like it would be a form of activism. It's a way to get in conversation with the landlord and be like, this is a real thing that we're dealing with. And I don't know. I just. I just think that's how, you know, putting it out there and working on it together is how we make that change. I like that. I like it. It's a, you're speaking to your landlord by doing this. This is a, this is a conversation. So be sure to send your own city conundrums to us for our call on episode, fill out the Google form that's on our show notes, or send me an email at your city could be better at citycast.fm. Taylor Leahy, thank you for coming on your city could be better. Thank you, David. It's great. That's all for today's episode of Your City Could Be Better. I'm your host, David Plotz, and our producers are Aria Brocci and Priyanka Tilvey. Our music is by Carl Christensen. If you are enjoying the show, please tell your friends, rate the show and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. We're going to be back next week with another conversation about how your city could be better. See you later.