Restoring the American Village with Diane Alisa

In this episode, I connect with Diane Alisa Tuft, author of A Love Letter to Suburbia: How to Restore the American Village, to discuss her journey into urbanism and her advocacy for walkable communities and the return of villages. As part of this journey, we discuss how a specific Not Just Bikes video opened her eyes to what was making her so frustrated and miserable.

Helpful Links (note that some may include affiliate links to help me support the channel):
👉 Are American Suburbs to Blame for Everything?
👉 Buy A Love Letter to Suburbia: How to Restore the American Village on my Bookshop.org
or here for Amazon and Audible versions
👉 Strong Towns website
👉 The Strong Towns Podcast episode feat. Diane Alisa
👉 My Daybreak New Urbanist - Walkable, Bikeable Community video with Mike West
👉 The Not Just Bikes video that started it all, Why We Won't Raise Our Kids in Suburbia
👉 My Tim Gill episodes - Safe for kids means safe for everyone and The Battle to Break Free from Car Dependency and Return Childhood Independence
👉 Jason Slaughter with the Not Just Bikes Channel and I are discussing the Suburban Cul-de-Sac development pattern and unnecessarily long trips
👉 My Strong Towns Playlist
👉 Pocket Neighborhoods Video with Ross Chapin
👉 Oulu video with Pekka Tahkola and the shortened version
👉 Urban Cycling Institute Gender Differences report
👉 My episode with Jon Jon W - The Happy Urbanist
👉 My episode with Coach Balto on the Bike Bus movement

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4. Make a donation to my non-profit, Advocates for Healthy Communities, Inc., to help support my pro bono work with cities

Credits:
- Video and audio production by John Simmerman
- Music via Epidemic Sound

Resources used during the production of this video:
- My recording platform is Ecamm Live
- Editing software Adobe Creative Cloud Suite
- Equipment: Contact me for a complete list

For more information about the Active Towns effort or to follow along, please visit our links below:
- Active Towns Website
- Active Towns on Bluesky
- Weekly Update e-Newsletter

Background:
Hi Everyone! My name is John Simmerman, and I’m a health promotion and public health professional with over 35 years of experience. Over the years, my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization in how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.

Since 2010,  I've been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be while striving to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a "Culture of Activity" for "All Ages & Abilities."

The Active Towns Channel features my original video content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.

Thanks once again for tuning in! I hope you find this content helpful and insightful.

Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2026