Every day, headlines slide across your phone.

Oil prices. Trade deals. Interest rates. Infrastructure bills.

Most of the time, they feel abstract. Far away. Like something happening to someone else.

Until your water bill goes up.

Your rent spikes.

Your street stays broken for three more years.

ZIP: Where Policy Lands is a short-form podcast that connects those moments.

Each episode starts with one real question in one real place—and traces how decisions made in boardrooms, legislatures, and foreign capitals quietly land in American zip codes.

This isn’t punditry.

It isn’t partisan.

It’s translation.

From global policy to local consequences.

From headlines to doorsteps.

Episodes are short, focused, and grounded in real locations.

One place. One question. One clear attempt to answer it.

About the Show

ZIP explores how policy actually works once it leaves the press conference and hits everyday life.

Whether it’s a blue-collar town in Illinois or a high-rise neighborhood in New York, the system is the same—even when the places are different.

If you’ve ever wondered why things cost more, break faster, or feel harder than they used to, this show is for you.

Credits

Host, Writer, and Producer:

Patrick Fore

Patrick Fore Creative

Theme Music:

The Universe in Your Eyes

by baegel

Licensed through Epidemic Sound

Subscribe

New episodes weekly.

Five to eight minutes each.

Follow ZIP: Where Policy Lands wherever you listen to podcasts.

In September 2025, water and sewer rates went up in Freeport, Illinois.

Five percent for water. Ten percent for sewer.

Nothing about the water changed. Nothing about the pipes got better.

People just started paying more.

This episode traces how that happened.

Starting with a city council vote in a town of 25,000 people, we follow the chain backward—through deferred street maintenance, rising asphalt costs, global oil markets, and a production decision made in Vienna in 2023.

It’s a story about how a cut in oil production by OPEC quietly turned into higher utility bills, broken streets, and fewer options for a Midwestern city with no way to absorb the shock.

This isn’t punditry.

It isn’t partisan.

It’s an explanation of how global policy lands in local lives.

In This Episode

• Why Freeport raised water and sewer rates in 2025
• How deferred maintenance turns small repairs into expensive rebuilds
• Why asphalt prices track oil prices
• How OPEC production cuts affect U.S. infrastructure costs
• Why cities can’t hedge against commodity volatility
• How global decisions quietly show up in monthly bills

Location

61032 — Freeport, Illinois

Population: ~25,000

A case study in how global economics reach local streets.

Key sources include:

• OPEC and OPEC+ official statements from June 2023 regarding oil production cuts, along with reporting by Reuters, Bloomberg, and the Financial Times.
• U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data on global oil production, refining, and petroleum product pricing.
• International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates on Saudi Arabia’s fiscal breakeven oil price and national budget requirements.
• Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Illinois Asphalt & Pavement Association (IAPA) reporting on asphalt price trends and their relationship to crude oil prices.
• Transportation Research Board (TRB) research on refinery behavior and asphalt supply as a residual petroleum product.
• City of Freeport, Illinois public records, including City Council meeting minutes (August 26, 2025), utility fund financial statements, and the 2025–2028 Capital Improvement Program.
• Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) and Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA)guidance on municipal budgeting and infrastructure funding.
• Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and consumer policy research on the regressive impact of utility rate increases.

Figures are rounded for clarity, and ranges are used where costs vary by region or reporting period.

Credits

Host, Writer, and Producer:

Patrick Fore

Patrick Fore Creative

Theme Music:

The Universe in Your Eyes

by baegel

Licensed through Epidemic Sound

About ZIP

ZIP traces how decisions made in boardrooms, legislatures, and foreign capitals quietly land in American zip codes.

Every episode starts with one place, one question, and follows the chain all the way back—connecting headlines to everyday costs like rent, utilities, healthcare, and infrastructure.

Episodes are short, focused, and grounded in real locations.

Subscribe & Follow

New episodes weekly.

Five to eight minutes each.

If an episode helped something click for you, share it with someone who’s been asking the same question.