Urbanism Speakeasy is an establishment that empowers customers (you!) to live happier, healthier lives.

The concept was born in 2013, when I launched the Urbanism Speakeasy podcast as a way to break through all the technical jargon of how experts plan and design infrastructure.

Our minds, bodies, and wallets are directly impacted by seemingly boring infrastructure. We’re suffering the consequences of unhealthy infrastructure, but not much is changing. This stuff matters to everyone.

The decades roll by, we have more information than ever before at our fingertips, but experts aren’t creating delightful places to live, work, and play.

Public sector employers expect rule enforcement.
Private sector employers expect to win contracts with the public sector.

These conditions make it dangerous for architects, planners, and engineers to openly challenge the status quo while advancing a career.

Urbanism Speakeasy exists to quench your intellectual thirst in the privacy of your inbox. Explore ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep muted and shunned. This is your inspiration source to provoke action at the local level.

Maybe you want to…

create a bicycle-friendly place that draws out the most smiles per square mile
convert a shed to an apartment without being hauled off to jail
open a salon in your living room
rebuild a retail store without being forced to pave a field for car storage
grow vegetables along the sidewalk

Or maybe you just want to help make it possible for other people to have more freedom in the way they live and move through the built environment. All ages, all abilities, all walks of life.

WHO IS ANDY BOENAU?

Andy Boenau is publishing Urbanism Speakeasy to inspire and motivate you. If he converts you to the All-Powerful Bike Lobby, all the better. He’s won awards for photography, filmmaking, writing, and podcasting. (He’s unqualified for any of that artsy fartsy stuff. His parents helped him buy a civil engineering degree.)

Anyway, no fancy degrees or special permissions here. Just motivating stories to create happy, healthy communities. Here are a couple of articles that’ll give you a better idea where I’m coming from: