What if composting were more than waste management? What if it could help reconnect people to their food, their neighborhoods, and the natural systems beneath the city?

Sam and Warren sit down with Ryan Jackson, Executive Director of LA Compost, at the organization’s Griffith Park site. Ryan explains how LA Compost transforms food scraps into healthy soil through a network of community composting sites across Los Angeles County and why keeping those resources local matters.

They discuss LA Compost’s beginnings as a few friends collecting food scraps by bicycle, the policies that once made community composting technically illegal, and the organization’s evolution into a regional climate and food-systems leader. Ryan also makes the case that successful composting requires more than green bins and large processing facilities. People need a tangible relationship with the system and a reason to see food scraps as a community resource rather than waste.

The conversation explores soil health, urban sustainability, California’s organic-waste mandates, neighborhood-scale climate infrastructure, and whether community composting should be treated as a public utility... or as something even more fundamental.

Watch the full video episode on YouTube for visuals on our visit to LA Compost’s Griffith Park site, including a tour of the composting process and Sam and Warren actually turning the pile. Yes, there are pitchforks. Yes, the compost is steaming.

We cover:

• Community composting in Los Angeles
• Food-waste recycling and healthy soil
• LA Compost’s neighborhood-based model
• California organic-waste policy
• Climate action and environmental justice
• Local food systems and urban agriculture
• Building stronger connections between people, soil, and cities

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Oil wells aren’t just part of Los Angeles history. They’re still operating today, and sometimes just steps from homes, schools, and entire neighborhoods.

In this episode of City People, Samantha Roxas and Warren Logan speak with Emma from Physicians for Social Responsibility–Los Angeles and STAND-L.A., and Ashley from Communities for a Better Environment, about what it means to live next door to urban oil drilling.

We examine how oil extraction became embedded in Los Angeles communities, the health and environmental consequences residents have raised for decades, and the fight to permanently phase out neighborhood drilling. We also ask a bigger question: Who gets protected when a city plans for the future—and who is expected to keep living with the consequences of its past?

This is the story of the oil wells next door and the communities working to shut them down.

Topics include: Los Angeles oil drilling, environmental justice, public health, neighborhood oil wells, fossil fuels, frontline communities, and the movement to phase out urban oil extraction.

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What happens when an entire neighborhood decides it deserves better transit?

In this episode, we sit down with leaders from the San Antonio Station Alliance (SASA), a grassroots coalition advocating for a new BART station in one of Oakland's most densely populated neighborhoods.

We explore why San Antonio was left without a station, how Link21 and a potential second Transbay crossing could reshape the Bay Area, and what it actually takes to move a multibillion-dollar infrastructure project from community vision to political reality.

Along the way, we talk about organizing, coalition building, housing, transit equity, and why some of the most important infrastructure projects don't start inside government. They start with neighbors.

If you're passionate about public transportation, urban planning, local government, or community advocacy, this conversation offers a rare and wonky look at how cities change from the ground up.

In this episode:

• Why Oakland's San Antonio neighborhood lacks a BART station
• How the San Antonio Station Alliance was formed
• What Link21 could mean for the East Bay
• The politics behind major transit investments
• How residents can influence public infrastructure

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What if public transit wasn't just about getting from Point A to Point B?

BART's Chief Communications Officer Alicia Trost is experimenting with a radically different idea: comedy trains, speed dating, anime festivals, movie nights, birdwatching excursions, fashion shows, and other unexpected experiences designed to reconnect people with transit.

In this episode, we explore how one transit agency is using culture, community, and creativity to boost ridership, reshape public perception, and remind people that infrastructure can be joyful.

Because maybe the future of transit isn't just better trains... it's creating reasons for people to choose the city in the first place.

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Downtowns don’t just “die.” They unravel.

Office workers disappear. Foot traffic drops. Small businesses close. And suddenly, the economic engine of a city stalls.

So what does it actually take to bring it back?

In this episode of City People, we sit down with Shola Olatoye, CEO of the San Francisco Downtown Development Corporation, to unpack what it means to rebuild a city in real-time.

From post-pandemic collapse to cautious comeback, this is a conversation about how cities function as ecosystems and what happens when the system breaks.

We get into:

• Why downtowns are uniquely fragile (and uniquely important)
• The real reason cities struggle to “fix” themselves
• How public-private partnerships are quietly shaping the future of cities
• Why clean streets, bookstores, and public space matter
• And what it actually takes to design a city people want to return to

This isn’t just about San Francisco. It’s about every city asking the same question right now: What comes next?

Because the future of cities won’t just happen; it has to be built back intentionally.

🎧 Listen if you care about: urban planning, economic development, housing, public-private partnerships, downtown recovery, and the future of cities

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Why do some public spaces feel vibrant and full of life while others feel empty, over-designed, or impossible to love?

In this episode of City People, hosts Sam Roxas and Warren Logan explore what actually makes public space work. From Salesforce Park, an oasis in the sky above downtown San Francisco, to Second Street, where a city street becomes a stage for music, gathering, and civic life, we examine how great public places come to life.

Along the way, we talk with James Kirby of Biederman Redevelopment Ventures and Luke Spray of Civic Joy Fund about the real ingredients behind thriving public spaces: programming, stewardship, belonging, intention, and the people who care enough to activate them.

This episode explores:

• What public space really means in modern cities
• Why some places feel welcoming and alive, while others feel sterile
• How programming and stewardship shape the success of parks, plazas, and streets
• Who pays for great public spaces—and whether the investment is worth it
• Why streets may be the next frontier of public space
• What happens when we start treating streets as places for joy, culture, and community, not just transportation

Public space isn’t just infrastructure. It’s a canvas.
And the best spaces come alive when people decide to use them.

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In this episode, we head to Barrio Logan in San Diego, CA to spend time with the people and places that give a neighborhood its soul. We visit Libélula Books & Co., an independent bookstore that serves as a true third place: hosting readings, workshops, and creative gatherings that bring the community together, and meet artist, content creator and sign painter Koy Sun, whose hand-painted, maximalist lettering helps small businesses feel visible and distinct in an increasingly expensive, copy-paste city.

Along the way, we talk about what really makes a place feel alive: affordability, allowed uses beyond formula retail, and the policies that determine which kinds of spaces get to exist at all. We decide that the soul of a city isn’t just how it looks; it’s how it’s cared for, who it makes room for, and whether people can still put down roots.

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We’ve all done it: you really need to pee, so you buy a muffin you don’t even want… just to get the bathroom code.

In this episode, Sam and Warren uncover why public restrooms are in such short supply in cities, starting at Awaken Cafe in downtown Oakland, where one small business has quietly become the de facto public restroom for a whole slice of the city (including City Hall’s backyard, which is a little wild when you think about it). They sit down with Cortt, Awaken’s founder, to talk about what it actually means to run a “public restroom” without the public funding, the emotional labor, the conflict management, and the literal missing chunks of porcelain.

Then we hop to Berkeley for a conversation with Jess Heinzelman, co-founder of Throne, about why public bathrooms got so scarce, why they've been so damn expensive, and what it looks like to build a restroom system around dignity, design, and real operations. We get into the not-so-glamorous realities: loitering fears, vandalism, “bathrooms turning into homes,” and why “just install one” is never the end of the story. Plus: how tech, sensors, cleaning logistics, and behavioral design can make a public restroom feel more like a hotel lobby and less like a punishment.

This is a very funny episode. It’s also a serious one. Because some cities have made our sidewalks the most rational option for defecation. We know (and even more so after this episode), that this doesn't have to be the case.

We cover:

• The “bathroom code economy”
• When small businesses become emergency responders
• Why cities agree on restrooms...until it’s time to place one
• Pit Stops, Portland Loos, maintenance realities, and implementation chaos
• Why design changes behavior and why “prison cell bathrooms” backfire
• Throne’s approach: off-grid siting, data, cleanliness, and accountability
• What to ask your city councilmember if you want this to change

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