The Strange Death of the American Front Porch: Molly Brady on Land, Law, and the Lost Art of Neighborliness

00:00:31 Andrew Keen: Hello, everybody. I think everybody should be pleased that we're over July 4. No more 250 year anniversary shows. But, of course, the show goes on. America goes on, and America remains unfinished. Couple of months ago, we had the Harvard law scholar, Alexandra Natapoff on the show. She has edited a new book appropriately called America Unfinished: Two Hundred and Fifty Years of Law and Governance, which, is made up of contributions from professors at Harvard Law School. And I thought it would be good, given that we're over the two hundred and fiftieth, to talk about America, continue to talk about America unfinished. My guest today is Molly Brady, another professor at the Harvard Law School. According to her X page, she's always half joking. Although, Molly, I'm not sure you were half joking in your piece, were you?

00:01:32 Molly Brady: That's true. I think it was a relatively serious look for me, and I think why I study the things I do and why I think they matter at this moment.

00:01:40 Andrew Keen: I know there's a personal element to the piece that you wrote about America Unfinished in Natapoff's, volume. So perhaps you might introduce yourself. Tell me a little bit about where you were born and how your own narrative fits into what you wrote in this volume?

00:01:57 Molly Brady: Yeah. Sure. So I grew up in Utica, New York, which, is along the old Erie Canal in Upstate New York, really, true Upstate New York, not just sort of north of New York City. And I think that, even when I was in law school, I realized that the subjects that I was most drawn to were those that I had seen affecting my life in Utica. So topics like fracking, abandoned housing, urban renewal, these were all things that I remember seeing, when I was growing up. And, so I think they led me a little bit toward property law, which studies all those things, and towards city development. And this is a part of the country, I think, also, which is in the Rust Belt, seeing a lot of economic decline.

00:02:43 Andrew Keen: And so, did you and I don't wanna pigeonhole you and tell me off if, I'm not your student, so I probably can't get into too much trouble. You can grade me low. But, did you have a JD Vance style? I know you also, like Vance, graduated from Yale Law School. Did you have a JD Vance style childhood? Probably not quite as extreme, I would guess.

00:03:05 Molly Brady: No. Not quite as extreme. We were actually, at Yale Law School at the same time, so tiny world. But, I did not. And I would say that I was very aware of the economic circumstances that were depressing my area. And I think when I left, I was aware that a lot of people that I was going to school with, I went to Harvard College, had no sense of, I think, Upstate New York or the Rust Belt or sort of what people were thinking about. So I think in that way, there was perhaps some commonality, some effort to sort of say there are other places that are struggling with real problems, but, nothing nearly so severe as I've heard.

00:03:44 Andrew Keen: JD, of course, leveraged, if that's the right word, his own background into best selling book and political legal career. Were you from relatively unprivileged, circumstances? How did you make yourself, so to speak? Going to Harvard as an undergrad, Yale Law, and now a tenured faculty, young tenured faculty at Harvard, which is, of course, the pinnacle of any academic legal career.

00:04:12 Molly Brady: I appreciate the young bit. No. The, no. I was not underprivileged, in any way. I grew up in a, you know, suburban, upbringing mostly. I was born in Utica born in Syracuse, raised a bit in Utica, and then my parents, like many, parents, took us to, the suburbs, nominally for schools. And so it was not, underprivileged in any way, but I do think was sort of colored also by growing up in a place where, people had really different political opinions. It was a red place in a blue state, and, I've subsequently lived in lots of different kinds of places, but I think I kind of took for granted the, amount of disagreement, that, people in my area were kind of coming up with.

00:04:58 Andrew Keen: So the title of, Natapoff's, book, which you contribute to is America Unfinished. But I'm guessing where you grew up, America was I mean, the problem is it wasn't unfinished, but it was finished. We're talking about a post industrial world. Is that fair?

00:05:16 Molly Brady: I think that's right. It's although the question is sort of what do we do, about the people that, you know, can't migrate themselves out of there. I think a lot of local government scholarship, which is one of the subjects I teach, sort of focuses on agglomeration that if we can just sort of get everybody to Greater New York City or greater San Francisco, you know, we'll solve the world's problems. But, I think the question instead is, you know, what do we do about the many people, communities, governments, schools, and people who might not be able to relocate out of those circumstances? You know, to what extent is there possibility left, in those, communities? And so I think that, you know, it's that's the way in which it's unfinished. It's that is the past, really where the best times for places like Utica, is that really the all there is?

00:06:04 Andrew Keen: You gave, you were part of a seminar at Harvard Law School about the book, and it was entitled, at least in the coverage, A Republic If You Can Keep It, which, of course, is a famous comment, by Benjamin Franklin after, the republic was created. This idea of a republic if you can keep it in the foundations of America, does it suggest a kind of narrative where there is an end, Molly? Or is one of the problems with the way in which Americans conceive of their history is that they imagine a kind of end of history, that it's not open ended? Mhmm.

00:06:50 Molly Brady: Yeah. I do think that that is a problem. So I think of even in my own work, you know, that even when a project is finished, is it ever really finished? There's sort of an you know, we are a work in progress. I think everybody is always trying to, improve, in, you know, again, my own life. I would say that's true. And I think the question is, you know, do we sort of rest on our laurels and say we did it? We came up with the perfect system, or do we sort of look at places and areas where we can change things and improve or where we haven't done so well? And as somebody who thinks historically, of course, there are lots of examples of that.

00:07:25 Andrew Keen: But, of course, as a, quote, unquote, new republic, the idea of self improvement was written into the very, architecture or infrastructure of the place. Although, of course, we did a show recently with the American historian David Silverman about the treatment of Native Americans. Many books and many shows have also been done, of course, on slavery and African Americans. So can one of in your view, I mean and I know this isn't really your area, but can America escape from these two original sins, the sins of what, at least, Silverman calls a kind of unintentional genocide of the native people and, of course, slavery and racism?

00:08:09 Molly Brady: Yeah. I don't think there's any escape. I think the a lot of what the work that I do is try to, examine is to look at the sort of choices that led us down various paths and to consider whether we can make different ones. And so I don't think it's a matter of escaping or sort of running away, but sort of seeing the choices that were made and how they led to this point and how we might think about our choices now, given that set of circumstances. So I don't think there is really any escape.

00:08:38 Andrew Keen: No escape. Another of your colleagues at Harvard Law School and another contributor to the volume, Annette Gordon-Reed in the symposium you gave, talked about America as a nation of immigrants. In your work and in your thinking, is that the foundation of the republic, a nation of immigrants?

00:08:59 Molly Brady: I mean, I think certainly it becomes one. So I think in its, you know, its first moments, it's hard, harder to sort of characterize that way. Although it is literally true as you said with, native dispossession and the like. But, I think that the sort of nation of immigrants, especially across the nineteenth century is, you know, of course inescapable given American history. And actually, you know, I think this is an area in which where I'm from, to bring it back to that topic, is very interesting. So Utica, New York, is a place that has actually, despite its kind of red politics, embraced, immigration, from Bosnian refugees to Iraqi refugees. When I was growing up, there was actually a section of our newspaper that was in Bosnian. And that's because it was sort of a dying place. And so you have this kind of interesting coexistence of, you know, sort of some hostile political ideas with a group of people that really do, you know, value immigration and recognize the crucial, ways in which it supported a community that was struggling. And so, you know, this is partially why I think that neighborliness, that community could be some of the answer to our current polarization.

00:10:11 Andrew Keen: Yeah. Neighborliness, of course, is the heart of your contribution and your thinking that many early visitors to the United States, Tocqueville, of course, comes to mind most prominently, came here and witnessed, at least in their view, a kind of a remarkable experiment in neighborliness, in community, in civic virtue. Do you think that those reports by travelers like, visitors like Tocqueville he wasn't alone, but, of course, his Democracy in America is towers above all the other, travel descriptions of America in the early nineteenth century. Do you think he was right?

00:10:53 Molly Brady: That the, that sort of the great experiment in governments that in governance, that's what America was bringing to

00:11:00 Andrew Keen: the table. The virtue in America was of if not civility, certainly it's civic quality. The reason that he came from France and what he saw were new men, new women, particularly men, new men who were who acted politically, who had civic virtue, in contrast, of course, with the feudal France which he'd left and which he was deeply ambivalent about.

00:11:26 Molly Brady: Mhmm. I do think that one thing, you know, that is striking, and again, it connects somewhat to the, to local government, which is another thing I teach, is the belief in kind of the town, and in kind of muddling out, you know, our arguments, which obviously is part of what gives rise to, our constitutional order. You know, sort of thinking about, you know, Massachusetts town governance and every person or every white man, we should say, but, you know, nominally every person, having a role in the shape of policy, and arguing with neighbors about what the right policy should be. And, you know, I think, there's a question how scalable that is to a large, polity like America. But I think that's one of the things I have in mind and that I think is, you know, is kind of striking, seeing that kind of local participation. Scalability, again, a big question, but I would've I would think that would be a big takeaway.

00:12:26 Andrew Keen: So what went wrong? We did a show recently on the Louisiana Purchase and on this acquisition of a huge amount of land, which, I don't know, whatever it is, doubled, tripled the size of the original United States. You're talking to me from Cambridge, Massachusetts, the heart of New England, which was what Tocqueville saw in terms of New England, democracy. Did the country simply get too big?

00:12:52 Molly Brady: I think that's, you know, one thing that happens is I think that the size, like you said, scalability of this kind of system of government we have is a puzzle. And I think also the questions, which just, you know, come up all the time in local government law, what government should make what decisions? You know, should the local government make this decision, the state government, the national government, and then sort of, you know, major conflicts over that. Slavery, of course, being one example. But, it's hard to sort of pinpoint one thing that went wrong. But I think scalability, and, you know, can we make this form of government exist across this scale of difference is one of the big questions, which again, I think we're very much grappling with, in this moment.

00:13:33 Andrew Keen: In historical terms, Molly, it's well, in contemporary terms, it's hard to have conversations these days. You don't need me to tell you where people complain about incivility in America, the absence of civility. You've written a piece about it. You your career is built around that. When did this begin to become a national preoccupation? Is it only recent, or have Americans always been concerned about the weakness, the fragility of community, of incivility between different political groups, ethnic groups? Religious groups, of course. Because, of course, the republic came out of well, it was born in many ways out of the religious civil wars in Europe.

00:14:20 Molly Brady: Mhmm. Yeah. No. I think it's always been a concern. What I think is, different is, of course, technology, in this moment. So I think when a lot of our difference was, you know, kind of mediated through traditional publishers, for instance, you know, you really had to grapple again with people in your physical environment or workplace or what have you. And so I think that partially what has made this moment feel different, is not sort of the presence or of anxiety about incivility, which I think has always been there, but rather the performance of it, I think, which is it's relentless. You know, all of us have cell phones on which we can go find people, you know, behaving horribly in any given moment. And so I think that's partially, one of the reasons that seems like a big issue bigger issue maybe, even though it's always been, I think, a piece of our polity.

00:15:15 Andrew Keen: One of your colleagues is an old friend of mine, Jonathan Zittrain, who I know is also a contributor to the volume. You did a symposium recently with him. Can we then? Zittrain, of course, is an expert on the Internet. I know his contribution to your volume focused on that. Can we are you suggesting, Molly, we blame it all on the Internet? Is it textful? Can we blame Silicon Valley for the unraveling of civic life in America?

00:15:44 Molly Brady: I don't think they're fully to blame, but I think it's a piece of the puzzle. And, you know, again, I'm influenced by Robert Putnam and Bowling Alone, and he writes Bowling Alone.

00:15:53 Andrew Keen: Putnam is an old friend of the show too. He's been on several times.

00:15:57 Molly Brady: Terrific. He's, but, you know, he wrote that in 2000 before we were in our current Internet moment. And then, you know, it was sort of television and changes in household working outside the home. Lots of different factors, I think, contribute. But I do think that, you know, social media, and sort of the post bowling alone era is one that is, you know, is particularly alarming. And again, I think it happens at the same time that we see, and this is part of Putnam's argument, suburbanization, the loss of third places, where people have to, you know, be in person and interact, the rise of things that enable remote work. We just see all these things that kind of, you know, contribute to, physical community being lost and technological community replacing it, but maybe in ways we didn't anticipate or expect.

00:16:50 Andrew Keen: So this is the heart of your argument, physical versus online spaces. What is the fate then of physical communities? As these online communities become wealthier, literally and metaphorically, do we see the impoverishment of places like the Northern New York towns where you grew up.

00:17:12 Molly Brady: Mhmm. Yeah. I mean, I think that it is worrisome. And I think it's very easy when physical community is not presenting a real alternative, to turn to technological community as a substitute. And so what I would like to see the law do, and again, the areas I study are property, land use, and local government, is provide real alternatives. Because I do think people, they're human. They yearn for that kind of connection and they don't feel, you know, that the technological community is quite a replacement. But law doesn't always make it easy, for them to find that, whether it's because of how we encourage suburban sprawl or where we locate, you know, parks and other physical spaces or, you know, I was just reading, wonderful book, by Sam Bloch on shade, that talked a little bit about the decline of the porch, and how it's sort of a money saving thing for builders that you wouldn't have to, you know, have a porch anymore. But think about the loss, that happened as a result, of, you know, people not being on their porches and interacting with neighbors. So I think there's all these kind of micro ways that property and land use choices contribute to the lack of real physical alternatives. And so it's not surprising to me that, you know, in the absence of competition, technology is where people go.

00:18:26 Andrew Keen: So can we blame it on the market? I mean, if there was a demand for porches, people would pay for homes with porches, wouldn't they?

00:18:34 Molly Brady: Yeah. So I think it's that's a piece of it, but I don't think that answers all of it because I think that, you know, to some extent, you know, prefab, we have lots of market actors. So builders are making, you know, making decisions that the consumer is not always equipped to, you know, bargain over and negotiate for. So, you know, I think the market is a piece of the puzzle and does explain, you know, some of what we see. An analogy I would give is to, you know, homeowners associations today. So, you know, people say why if, you know, homeowners associations are, people don't like them, why do most people move into one in the South and West? And the answer is there's not really an alternative. Most things are being built by developers, in those regions in homeowners associations. So there's a lack of meaningful choice. And so I think it sort of distorts the market, a bit, when you have kind of intermediaries making decisions like developers and builders.

00:19:30 Andrew Keen: So is suburbanization the problem? I mean, again, we this goes I wanna come back to the Internet, but this goes back far be before the invention of the Internet in the post war age, Levittown, which, of course, excluded I'm not sure if it was legally or otherwise, people of different color skins. Is the problem really suburbanization? Can there be community in suburbs, Molly?

00:19:56 Molly Brady: I think there can be community in suburbs. But again, I think that there have to be intentional design and policy choices to make that happen. It's not going to happen by, you know, chance encounters, the same way it might, in some, urban places. But I do think that, you know, suburbanization is a piece of the puzzle. Suburbanization, you know, of course, is also satisfying market preferences. And I think that's one of the complicated features of the work I think about is, you know, we certainly looking back even a 100 years ago, see efforts to control of neighbors. And so, you know, to what extent, like, is that something we can actually engineer around legally? Again, I feel like illuminating the choice makes it possible to make different ones. But, you know, suburbanization, I don't know if it's cause or effect. It's, again, kind of goes in both directions, I think.

00:20:50 Andrew Keen: I brought the market up earlier. You've mentioned several times already in this conversation the role of local government and of laws. Are you suggesting, man, that perhaps one of the problems in America in terms of this breakdown of civility is that, local government doesn't govern sufficiently? There needs to be a more aggressive kind of local government in terms of establishing laws that will create wealthier in a cultural or metaphorical sense, wealthier communities?

00:21:27 Molly Brady: I do think that. I think, you know, local and state government and I blame law schools and lawyers to some extent for this problem. Although, you know, when you're a hammer, everything's a nail. But, the you know, there's such a focus, such an obsession with the federal government, with the prestige of the federal government, with the prestige of federal judicial clerkships. You know, I think even when I started teaching about a decade ago, you know, the number of students were interested in practicing in state and local government was pretty small. That's changing a bit. But I think, you know, the potential of local governments and state governments, to, again, facilitate, cultural wealth, I like that phrase, is something that we need to think really more about. And that can be at the level of process. So how do we get more people involved, in, local government? It can also be substance in terms of the policies, you know, that we think local governments should pursue.

00:22:19 Andrew Keen: Isn't this chicken and egg, though, Molly? We've done shows in the past, from political scientists suggesting that the same ideological fissures and incivility at the federal level now can be seen at the local level. So if that's the case, why is local government any better than federal government when you've got hardcore ideologues of the left and the right who loathe each other and who come into power to destroy whatever the other one's done beforehand?

00:22:49 Molly Brady: Yeah. Yeah. So there is certainly, a bit of a chicken and egg problem. I think two things I would say. So one is, to some extent at the local level, left and right gets complicated. And so, David Schleicher, is a scholar at Yale who has written a little bit about this. But, you know, party preferences don't actually tell us much about road paving. You know, how we think about that. How that should be done. And even again, some of these land use choices don't neatly break down on political lines. So I think to some extent, some of the things that local governments control might not be as vulnerable, to polarization. That's not to say there aren't any. Of course, there are plenty. But the other thing, that I would say is that, the local governments, you know, I do think the process matters. So one of the ways in which we've seen so again, to take it to land use, you know, local government behave in less good ways, I think, is, the fact that homeowners tend to participate more, and so prefer policies at the local level that maximize aggregate home value. And Bill Fischel, economist at Dartmouth, is associated with this homevoter hypothesis. That, of course, has kind of pernicious effects. So it may be great, you know, maximizing home value for lots of people, but as we've seen, I think that's contributed to our affordability crisis. And so I there's a very robust debate right now going on. Do we think local governments will make different choices if we have process changes that enable, you know, younger people to take part at the same rates? I mean, it's amazing. I cite this briefly in my essay, but, and this is a way in which technology actually helped. But, that just the shift to Zoom for planning commission meetings completely changed the demographics of who showed up, to participate in decisions about, land use because it's challenging for, you know, younger people to make time on a Wednesday from seven to midnight, to go, you know, talk about whether there should be a corner store or a coffee shop. And so I think there are these little glimmers of hope, I would say, that maybe there might be possibility, in local governance.

00:25:07 Andrew Keen: Your work, of course, and your interest in local government and local community is rooted in the land. The environment is one area where we've had guests in the past suggesting that left and right can agree on it. It's one of the few areas where there seems to be less idea hardcore ideological division, in some ways. I mean, everyone loves the land around them, and even conservatives seem to be, supportive of that. Is that fair? If you focus on the local and the local land, does that, in some ways, undermine, challenge these hardcore ideological divisions in the country?

00:25:49 Molly Brady: Yeah. It's a good question whether it's sort of something specific to the land. You know, because I do think, you know, housing is another area whereas we see with kind of the, you know, yes in my backyard movement or even some recent bipartisan housing related legislation, that there is actually kind of cross party agreement on the fact that affordability is a crisis. So I do think maybe it is something about the land. But also, again, like the local, you know, to some extent it's very hard to sort of take big national parties with big political preferences about what happens at the federal level and translate that into the day to day operations of you know, sewers and schools and land. So, I think, that's a piece of what's going on.

00:26:37 Andrew Keen: So, do you have models of local communities that are or local government that are working? I mean, I know you're very well versed in New England, in Upstate New York. Mhmm. Berkeley, over the Bay from where I am in San Francisco is another model. Oakland is doing interesting stuff. Are there small communities which or even towns, cities which are doing it right for you?

00:27:04 Molly Brady: Yeah. It's a good question. I think it, of course, depends on what we think, you know, doing it right

00:27:08 Andrew Keen: Well, what you think is doing right. Yeah. It's your analysis, your contribution, and your work at the law school.

00:27:15 Molly Brady: Yeah. So I mean, I think I am focused to some extent on process. So I think for substance, you could look at, you know, lots of different local governments depending on your substantive preferences and like those that have, you know, sort of more aggressive intervention, do things like, you know, litigate against the government all the time. Or you could, you know, look to those that have very different policy preferences. But I really do think, you know, that the process is a piece of things. And I do think actually some Massachusetts towns, are worth looking at. I think Newton in Massachusetts is a really interesting example. It's gonna get real in the backyard but, that's a place where again we've seen some very pro housing policies come from

00:27:54 Andrew Keen: That's a very wealthy community. In fact, I've got very good friends living there. It is True. Is that good? Or it does that strengthen or weaken your argument in terms of the model?

00:28:04 Molly Brady: Yeah. I think it helps because, you know, again, we have this kind of vision of, you know, if people are put in power, they will just vote, you know, for self interest. And I think actually, again, what Newton's done with affordable housing is commendable and it's also partially driven by the fact that they are thinking about students and renters and that those people are, to some extent, involved in local government. You know, I think Cambridge has been experimented in very interesting ways. They recently had a charter commission, that, you know, involved a lot of different types of residents to think about what changes should be made. So, I'm sure there are thousands and thousands of local governments that there are lots of great, examples, but I think I'm encouraged by that. And I think, you know, more generally, I'm also encouraged, although there's fewer examples if you look at sort of the private side of things and there's even more governments, you know, even in things like homeowners associations. You know, there are better and worse examples of governance and process there, where I think there's more inclusive, ways of decision making versus, you know, sort of the prototype of the tyrant HOA president who's just, you know, running around measuring to see if everyone's grass is, you know, three inches high or whatever. I think that the process can help us again lead maybe to better substantive decisions.

00:29:23 Andrew Keen: Where I'm talking to you from, where I live, San Francisco, is extremely, don't need me to tell, extremely wealthy West Coast enclave, not a large city, but, punches above its weight in terms of its size. And, of course, it's been marked by very poor government, by incivility, by massive homelessness. What do you make of the struggle? I mean, things are getting slightly better with the new man now. But what do you make of the struggle of such remarkably prosperous cities like San Francisco to address, homelessness and civility?

00:30:01 Molly Brady: Mhmm. Yeah. I think that, San Francisco is a very interesting, example because, yes, I think like lots of places that saw lots of flight, you know, to suburbs and then, you know, with recent changes, it's gotten wealthier. And so I think this that there's a handful of cities where the problem is now we have the money, how do we deploy it and how do we avoid things like corruption and mismanagement, that can play communities. You know, most cities are not in that boat and are actually sort of, you know, financially struggling as against suburbs that are wealthier or have, you know, better services and schools. And so, San Francisco is kind of a different problem, a different model, given that it has not had the same financial struggles, but does, as you say, have, you know, sort of the homelessness, and other problems that, you know, are sort of unique to, it and other California cities. I think San Francisco is also interesting because and in fact, all of California raises this question about should we empower the local or the state, which, you know, I think certainly with housing, that question has come up, where we've seen California being very active in kind of preempting local governance, which is a problem, for me as someone who kind of likes local governance. You know, how should we think about as someone who likes both housing and local governance, when local governments, in suburbs are not, you know, making decisions to, make housing more affordable or something like that? You know, should we prefer that the state comes in? And so I think that's another dynamic that San Francisco and other places, have to reckon with is the sort of very active state government and thinking about where do we put what decisions given those two things.

00:31:41 Andrew Keen: Do you show up, Molly, in your local government? I mean, everyone in principle talks about it and says, oh, yeah. We should show up. We should self govern. We should but it but as you know, it requires a great deal of self discipline and sacrifice to even go to these meetings, let alone on a regular basis. Are you a model personally of showing up, of

00:32:03 Molly Brady: self coaching? Yeah. I could always do better. I'm not a member of town meeting, which would really be, you know, all in.

00:32:08 Andrew Keen: Wait. You live in, you don't live too far from Cambridge.

00:32:12 Molly Brady: No. I don't. And so I'm in Belmont now. I previously lived in Arlington, and, I did, go to planning commission and town meetings when there were things that were of interest. And I will say I was, again, autobiographical, someone who was positively affected by the capacity for remote participation because I have two small children. And so, you know, getting there around bedtime, is a real challenge. And so I think I've seen that firsthand, that can make a difference. I think the other thing, that has been empowering and exciting for me is, you know, the rise of organizations, that are local, that are around issues I care about. So Equitable Arlington was one, in Arlington, Abundant Homes, Massachusetts [as spoken: Abundant Housing Massachusetts] where not only is it about sort of who shows up to the meeting, but I think they we have active email groups about how do we make sure a contingent shows up. If there are fewer people going to be at this one, how do we make sure we're represented? So I could definitely be better. Again, I could be in town meeting. I do actually, when I teach land use and local government, require my students, to go, to at least one local meeting, which is not a ton. But the goal is to demystify, the process. You are supposed to be at these if there's an issue being discussed that you care about. And so, you know, don't think this is for someone else. Go and see what the real work of governance is about. Go and see what they're talking about and how they're talking about it and who's showing up and where lawyers are, if anywhere, in Yeah.

00:33:35 Andrew Keen: I mean, do they all know your neighbors and your fellow local government people who show up? Do they all know you're a professor at Harvard Law School?

00:33:44 Molly Brady: I don't think so, actually. So, it I will laugh. This is a technological example, but, I do sometimes have to self edit, in local Facebook groups when, people start going off about the history of land use and because I think, okay. Well, if I start weighing in, maybe someone will be like, who is this lady? So I mean,

00:34:04 Andrew Keen: I don't Yeah. And you don't wanna give them a free education.

00:34:07 Molly Brady: If they want to properly educate, they need to go to the Harvard Law School.

00:34:11 Andrew Keen: That's right. In all seriousness, Molly, I was reading something recently. I think it was in the Journal or the Times about men who are now going to be trained to make friends, which seemed to me both sad and bizarre. Something I mean, leaving aside local government, this question of not so much incivility, but the absence of the ability to get on with others. What's go I mean, we can't just blame this on social media, can we, or the suburbs? Something's gone bizarrely wrong. If people need to pay for advice, men middle aged men need to pay for advice or, consultants about how to make friends.

00:34:53 Molly Brady: Yeah. Yeah. I do think both those things play a role. You know, again, I think there's lots of different causes and I resist sort of, you know, boiling it down, to one. But I do think these are skills that, you know, again, I think that the way that people grew up, used to kind of inculcate those skills, you know, or having to go to the physical workplace and interact, at the water cooler, the lunch table with people. And so to some extent, I think these are just skills that have kind of atrophied. You know, I was even, this past, weekend, at a pool with my small children and, a dad came up to my husband and said, oh, a bunch of us get together, you know, and have a beer in the garage, you know, one month a week. And it was sort of like we were delighted and happy, but also it happens so infrequently that people actually just in again these social settings kind of feel confident coming up to one another. I mean, this is way outside my expertise area. But, you know, I think the same thing with dating, of course. Right? Which is that, you know, people didn't used to need coaching and the other sorts of artificial things that have arisen in that, arena. And I think it's kind of the same for friendship, which is sad. And it one of the reasons I think we do need more, you know, community organizations or local participation to get people to practice that skill.

00:36:09 Andrew Keen: Yeah. It's interesting that you contrast local and the federal. Of course, some federal governments, Australia comes to mind, France, and even The US are beginning to think about, regulating social media use certainly for kids. What can, you've already noted that you feel there is a connection between online space and the poverty of the physical space. What can local governments do in terms of shaping or reshaping people's commitment to the physical as opposed to the virtual? Mhmm.

00:36:46 Molly Brady: I do think it kinda comes down to, some extent choices about land. So, how do we allocate the physical space we have? To what extent do we invest resources in community events, spaces, you know, things like, to use again my past weekend, you know, the public pool where you're likely to just interact with neighbors at the town place. So I think some of it is about, land use. Some of it is again, I think about process. So again, creating spaces, committees, communities, you know, encouraging people to get involved with their local library or other sort of civic institutions. And then I think there's substance, as well which is, you know, to what extent can they sort of, you know, through how they invest in schools or other, local amenities, you know, improve people's lives and improve people's education. And so I think those three things are really kind of essential. You know, we see some of that with the, school districts which I think, you know, we're early. Some local schools, in banning cell phones and thinking about cell phone usage. But, so being local experimenters on how they allocate physical space and even technology in some instances, I think, could be a really promising direction.

00:38:02 Andrew Keen: So, Molly, let's put your utopian cap on. You've contributed to this volume, America Unfinished. And now post July 4, 2026, we can begin to think about the three hundred years of law and governance in America. I don't know. Well, you'll probably be around. I don't think I will for the three hundredth year celebration. What how could we imagine America? What's the best case for more civility in America in '21, well, not 2076?

00:38:44 Molly Brady: Yeah. Yeah. Very good, very, very hard question. You know, I think two things I would hope and as, again, the parent of little kids, is for less polarization and less kind of, you know, demonization, which I do think, again, technology has done a lot, to encourage. You know, I think it's scary to think of a world that I didn't grow up with, you know, online bullying and other things where, or even again sort of writ large with sort of polarization and, you know, just the amount of hatred. I think it's really that I would hope for better, in, fifty years. And I don't a 100% know what policies will get us there on kind of the technology and the speech side of things. Again, those are things I'm interested in that are less outside, or less inside my area. I think also, you know, to think back to property and land use law, I think we would hopefully see real confrontation of our housing affordability crises, our environmental crises, that are gonna require people to work together, which maybe the side effect will be the first thing I said. And so I hope that we're in a place in fifty years and I don't know if I'll be there, but I'll try. But I hope we're in a

00:40:00 Andrew Keen: place in fifty years. You will. Certainly, your things will. And what about the worst case scenario? I don't mean to end on a sour note, but what happens if the themes, the problems deepen of incivility, of suburbanization, of atomization and loneliness? Where could America be in 2020 '20, 2076, Molly? How much worse can things get here? I mean, we've got, of course, Margaret Atwood's vision of a patriarchy. We've had all sorts of visions of civil war in this country. Yeah. What's the worst that could happen in the next fifty years?

00:40:41 Molly Brady: Yeah. Well, I unfortunately, you know, I do worry about the sort of, both of those, prospects. And I think more generally about, you know, the environmental degradation, and, you know, the likelihood that there will be lots of lives lost because of our incapacity to work together to solve these big problems, and to, you know, confront them head on and our inability to sort of think toward the far future in favor of kind of immediate gain. So I think, you know, the cut the environment is would be big up there as well, for me in terms of, you know, just the amount of natural disasters and other things we're likely to see that I if we don't kinda try to start confronting now, I worry greatly about what our world will look like.

00:41:30 Andrew Keen: Well, there you have it. Molly Brady of Harvard Law School is telling America that it can do better. She's a contributor to America Unfinished, a very interesting volume of essays by Harvard Law faculty. I think it's an important volume, an important conversation, and, it certainly will be one that we at Keen On America will continue, certainly. Maybe not for the next fifty years, but for the next few years. Molly Brady, congratulations on your contribution to America Unfinished, and, best of luck with your work. Thank you so much.

00:42:04 Molly Brady: Thank you for having me.