0:00

What's not to like about a lightly populated

0:03

group of rugged islands off the northern tip

0:05

of Scotland? Well, just be

0:07

prepared for the weather to get your

0:09

attention. If you like wild weather and

0:11

biblical type of rain and

0:13

storms and or nears, place for you.

0:16

Kinlay Francis tells us what he loves

0:18

about living in Orkney. Urban

0:20

planner Jeff Speck suggests that designing a city

0:23

should be a lot like designing a home. It's

0:25

meant to be for people. We like to

0:28

make our streets as outdoor living rooms, and what does that mean? It

0:30

means they have good edges. It means

0:32

they really hold you comfortably. Coming

0:34

up, he explains how some cities

0:36

are becoming better places to walk

0:38

by making motorists share space with

0:40

everybody else. Or

0:43

just keep on walking. Historian Anthony Satin

0:45

reminds us how nomads have shaped our

0:47

world for centuries. The one constant is

0:49

that they keep on doing what they've

0:51

always done, and that is moving around.

0:53

Come along for the hour ahead. It's

0:55

travel with Rick Steves. What

1:01

kind of world do you want to live in? In just a bit, a

1:03

city planner tells us what he's been learning from cities in Europe that

1:06

can help make American cities more

1:08

enjoyable places to walk around and

1:11

explore. We'll also look at

1:13

how nomads from long ago shaped the world we live

1:15

in today and the challenges that

1:17

nomadic communities are still tackling. Let's

1:20

start the hour in a part of Scotland

1:22

that lies beyond the usual tourist routes. A

1:25

few years ago, I was heading to Edinburgh

1:27

for perhaps the 20th time to update the

1:29

Edinburgh chapter in my Scotland guidebook. And

1:33

for some reason, I decided rather than spend three more

1:35

days in a city I already knew and loved, why

1:38

not go to some place entirely new? A

1:42

place where very few Americans venture at

1:44

the very north end of Scotland. So

1:47

instead of Edinburgh, I ventured to Orkney. And

1:50

I was so glad I did. My guide

1:52

was Kinlay Francis, and he runs a

1:54

company called Orkney Uncovered. And

1:57

today, Kinlay joins us to share his expertise. on

2:00

his homeland, Orkney. Ken Lay,

2:02

thanks for being with us. Yeah, thank you

2:04

very much, Rick. It's great being online with

2:06

you. Thank you for asking me to join

2:08

you. Yeah, first of all, there's a little

2:11

confusion about the name. Is it the Orkney's,

2:13

the Orkney Islands, or what? Yeah,

2:15

there's several ways of saying it, but

2:18

a lot of people think it's the Orkney's. That's the

2:20

no-no here in the far north. The

2:22

Orkney Islands is fine, but it's just known

2:24

as the Seventy Islands as a group. It's

2:26

just known as Orkney. Orkney.

2:29

So we'd say, I'm going to Orkney,

2:31

and the people there, not really Scottish.

2:34

What is the mix of the ethnicity

2:36

there in Orkney? Yeah, so

2:38

we were once part of Scandinavia,

2:40

and in 1468, we

2:43

were given off as part of a marriage

2:45

between King Krishna, first of Denmark, and

2:48

James III of Scotland. Wait a minute. 500

2:50

years ago, Norway gave you away as a

2:52

wedding present? Yeah, it's very

2:54

unfortunate for us because we didn't actually want

2:57

to be part of Scotland. Stay with Norway.

2:59

So yes, we've got

3:01

a very strong Viking and

3:03

Norse bloodlines. So we speak

3:05

English, Norwegian, and Danish up

3:07

here, no Gaelic. It's

3:09

a fascinating thing because you're just a little

3:11

stone's throw away from Scotland and the mainland

3:13

of Britain, but you really have

3:16

those strong Norwegian roots in Orkney. Now,

3:18

there's a lot of islands. I think

3:20

there's like 70 islands and

3:23

25,000 people, but one island really dominates,

3:25

right? Yes, that's right. So

3:27

the main island is called Mainland, just

3:29

to confuse them after. So... Wait a

3:31

minute. The main island is called Mainland?

3:34

Right, yeah. So it's called Mainland.

3:37

So when we hear in Orkney, we talk

3:39

about how we're going on holiday. Some of

3:41

the islanders off the main island say

3:43

we're going to Mainland for the day. So it's

3:45

not Mainland Scotland, it's Mainland Orkney, just known as

3:47

Mainland. Well, that's great.

3:49

And then the main city in Orkney, tell

3:51

us about the major city because it must

3:54

dominate Orkney. Yes, it's called

3:56

Karkwoll and it means church on the

3:58

Bay in Old Norse. The

4:00

pronounced corky valor and Old Norse

4:02

and so it's a church in

4:04

the brain actually relate to an

4:06

old truck from the eleventh century,

4:09

but we also have dominating the

4:11

skyline. Since. Magnus Cathedral and which

4:13

is the most northerly to see to

4:15

in the United Kingdom, and was built

4:17

by the Norse in the twelfth century.

4:19

And he were part of the terrorists of Trondheim, Norway

4:22

at that time eight hundred years ago. Yes,

4:24

That's correct yes we were we were am

4:26

a very powerful at place we still are

4:28

today we very good economy but park boys

4:30

at a very well and loots have to

4:33

city has about eight thousand people. And

4:35

that economy and unemployment is very

4:37

high. Can. How long has your family

4:39

been? Arcadian. And.

4:42

My family have been in the

4:44

Orkney Islands has since nineteen ninety.

4:46

And. That to be classed as Norton you

4:48

need to be born in Orkney. My

4:51

son Benjamin I was born in Orkney.

4:53

Okay so if you're raising a kid

4:55

in Orkney and is curious what would

4:57

his favorite sports be what what is

4:59

he enjoyed from a sports pundit the

5:01

case So this might as might surprise

5:03

some people but when it is a

5:06

big sports here in or his martial

5:08

arts and my son Benjamin as they

5:10

didn't kick boxing he also loves outdoor

5:12

adventure climbing and so walking. I.

5:14

Try to get into the sea but he is

5:16

not having any of it. is t code from

5:18

it for swimming. For. Anything outdoors, adventure,

5:21

athletics, different sports, and look mainly

5:23

kickboxing. Kinley speaking more Bachus Beautiful,

5:25

Send Benjamin, what's your biggest concern?

5:27

As a parent of an eight

5:30

year old boy growing up in

5:32

the big town of Orkney, I.

5:35

Think that the biggest concern for me

5:37

is the fact that is such an

5:39

innocent place. Or tonight and there's no crime

5:41

is very easy for children's to out

5:43

and played, you know, just by themselves in

5:45

the parks and so on. There

5:48

is no real concern at all for children

5:50

and maybe when they. Go. Down to

5:52

the city and for Benjamin it's the fact

5:54

is no Mcdonalds and know Parker Nothing and

5:56

no fc. What? Is the big city for

5:58

use in Edinburgh or. Inverness. Yeah.

6:01

Biggest city closest to us as Aberdeen

6:03

and Inverness is caused by as well.

6:05

They're both without and was about one

6:07

hundred and fifty miles south of Orkney.

6:09

The biggest city we go to

6:11

the was Attenborough. Normally this is

6:14

travels. Rick Steves were joined by

6:16

Orkney native Kinley Francis. He has

6:18

a particular passion for the geology

6:20

and history of this group of

6:22

remote islands and he shares his

6:24

passions on tours for his company

6:26

or Clean Uncovered. Can least website

6:28

is Orkney Uncovered.code that Uk in

6:30

Orkney. It's mostly one laid roads

6:32

with turn out right so if

6:34

there's a car approaching you just

6:36

leaped for the nearest turn out

6:38

where this or that. Part of the

6:40

road where it's two lanes for about a hundred

6:42

yards and then you carry on. Yeah,

6:45

that's very true at a turn out to quite

6:47

funny actually because many people don't understand what it

6:49

turned out that is. Or. Away by

6:51

are passing places we call them, and there's

6:53

an unwritten rule in the Or in Shetland

6:56

Islands as well actually that a bigger vehicle

6:58

wins the race. So. I always

7:00

end up being face to face with

7:02

a tractor so I'm always in the

7:04

turnout it would it. I'm curious about

7:07

the political issues because you're in a

7:09

community of twenty five thousand people in

7:11

Orkney. We've got Britain. We've got Scotland.

7:13

We've gotten brag that you know we've

7:15

got North Sea Oil and Gas. What

7:17

is a big issues? What? What's your

7:20

orientation? Are you more friendly with Edinburgh?

7:22

Are more friendly with London. Yeah.

7:24

I mean Parsley for myself. I like to

7:26

be part of Great Britain. And.

7:28

The Orkney and Shetland Islands particularly

7:31

Orkney. His eyes a royalist council.

7:33

And. It was states only back to

7:35

the seventeenth century when Oliver Cromwell felt take

7:38

us over as part of a military campaign.

7:40

Because. We were royalist about we are

7:42

very much geared towards united Kingdom and

7:45

the government's okay so you'll stand by

7:47

London. You don't want any of this

7:49

says separation business that know I'd I

7:51

personally I don't mean there are people

7:53

in every county with in Scotland that

7:56

one separation but because of Scotland succeeded

7:58

in pulling away from England. And

8:00

you'd have to go with them politically. Well

8:03

there is that question now here in

8:05

Orkney and Shetland there's already the agreement

8:07

perhaps in the pipeline that if this

8:09

ever happens then Norway will bring us

8:11

back. So we can't go back to

8:13

Scandinavia. Would that

8:15

be a referendum of the people of Orkney that

8:18

could decide that? Yeah I think it's

8:20

already in the pipeline where the Orkney Islands Council, the people

8:22

who run the local government up here. But yes I think

8:24

if that was to happen, overwhelming

8:27

majority votes you would go back to the

8:29

people of Norway. That's fascinating. Thank

8:31

you for that insight. Now when I landed in

8:33

Orkney I was just

8:35

impressed by how treeless the island

8:38

was. It was windy, gentle fields,

8:40

rolling hills and pretty bald. You

8:42

know cows, no stoplights, beaches

8:45

were like pneumonia zones. I mean there

8:48

were beautiful beaches but if you went

8:50

down there you just would start shivering

8:52

in a sparse population. You

8:54

know when people grow a garden they do it behind

8:56

stone walls so it doesn't get blown apart. So

8:59

fill those blanks in for us if you're exploring your

9:01

island, what are you going to find? Yeah

9:04

well one thing you need to explore in the island

9:06

is you need to remember to wear layers. It's

9:08

not about what you're wearing, it's how many layers you've got on. And

9:11

we are blown to bits by the North

9:14

Atlantic and the North Sea. A lot

9:16

of people talk about how you know southern

9:18

England after a 40 mile an hour wind

9:20

has to be evacuated. If

9:22

you add on a hundred miles an hour you've got

9:24

the Orkney Islands and no one's blinking an eye. They're

9:27

a very treeless island and that's because of the storm

9:29

force weather we get from the North Atlantic from the

9:32

prevailing West LA. So whenever you guys

9:34

in the United States get a really bad storm on

9:36

the east coast we're watching the national hurricane

9:38

service that you've got and as soon as

9:40

it leaves your shores we've got an

9:42

eye on that coming in towards us. But

9:45

it's an incredible wild rugged location and

9:47

if you like wild weather

9:49

and biblical type of rain and storms

9:51

then Orkney is the place for you.

9:55

In LA, France. This provides private tours of the

9:57

adventure trails and historical sites of Orkney dating back

9:59

to the North. The bronze iron

10:01

end stages. His home

10:03

bases in Kirkwall and his website is

10:05

Courtney Uncovered.kodak Uk Cuddly of course this

10:07

is a traveler so in Orkney has

10:10

it cites. Boy, there's a lot to

10:12

see and it's that thing because much

10:14

of it is World War One and

10:16

World War Two history and much of

10:18

it is mega lithic from the stone

10:21

Age like Stonehenge, that kind of thing.

10:23

Give us a quick review of first

10:25

about the twentieth century military importance of

10:27

Orkney. First and foremost

10:29

are most social history are are are

10:31

high street the moment. Which. Most

10:33

people normally relate to his. The Forsworn

10:36

the Second World War I Within the

10:38

ordinary islands you got one of the

10:40

world's largest natural Harvest Scott Stapp A

10:42

flu was named by the Vikings it

10:44

means sword water and it's an area

10:46

where the British Grand Fleet wasn't the

10:48

first World War and hopefully to the

10:50

Second World war. Two was a main

10:52

anchorage for our battleships and so there

10:54

was tens of thousands of parse now

10:56

based huge during the First and Second

10:58

World War. Strategic importance there is out

11:00

there were some battles in the Bay

11:02

Churchill came along. And and made his barriers

11:04

to help for the riot. And then one

11:07

thing I learned from you can lay on

11:09

my visit there were more people on Orkney

11:11

five thousand years ago than there are today

11:13

and was in a very important. Community.

11:16

In the mega lithic times and

11:18

you've got some quite impressive structures

11:20

they go back. Older than the

11:22

Egyptian pyramids, Yes, rec that's great.

11:24

We we have some very old structures

11:27

and the population was almost double that

11:29

it was Today's you probably looking at

11:31

about maybe forty forty five thousand people

11:33

and would have inhabited most of the

11:35

islands of the seventy today there's only

11:37

twenty one inhabited. The types of things

11:40

instructions that we have, we have some

11:42

huge stone circles, a stunning super Stennis.

11:44

And. The Ring a broader. These are

11:46

called Henge monuments like stone and but

11:49

predate Stone a fight least a thousand

11:51

years. We. Also have scoured bray

11:53

which is an incredible realistic as village.

11:55

One of the best preserved villages

11:57

in northwest Europe. This incredible how. Forget

12:00

walking with you and your six foot

12:02

seven and I'm six foot two and

12:04

we both then down low as people

12:06

have for five thousand years to climb

12:08

through this passage way and come into

12:10

this domed corbeled rooms which was a

12:12

a tomb so many millennia ago and

12:15

it just it overwhelm me with wonder.

12:17

Kinley, There's so much to see and

12:19

do on your fascinating corner of the

12:21

British Isles. Where would you take me

12:23

to dinner period if you want to

12:25

do this really to show off Orkney.

12:28

Well. I think probably my favorite place to

12:30

go for dinner is place good how these

12:32

allergies as a pub and carpool. It's got

12:34

a fighting style through it. All. The

12:36

beers are incredible Viking orientated time

12:38

beers and meets. Doesn't. Credible

12:40

food and overlooks the carpool. Harper is

12:43

extremely popular with the locals on the

12:45

food is always excellent as as a

12:47

service got a great fighting type atmosphere.

12:49

Well Kinley Francis, thank you so much

12:52

for joining us Eve just tix my

12:54

curiosity and I just went out with

12:56

you and your family at Best Wishes

12:58

as us enjoy your corner of Britain

13:01

and as you entertain the curious travelers

13:03

who come to visit. Thank you so

13:05

much Weaker Really pretty. Oh you're from.

13:12

Or yep, for a good long

13:14

walk in a bit. The author

13:16

of a book about Know Matt

13:18

tells us about wondering it's just

13:20

human nature the first urban design

13:22

experts if spec explains how major

13:24

European cities have been making their

13:26

streets more pedestrian friendly as travel

13:28

with Xd. americans

13:31

might go to a european city for

13:33

our to the history or the food

13:35

the chances are they'll come away impressed

13:38

by europe's pedestrian friendly urban cores efficient

13:40

mass transit and inviting public square and

13:42

when they return home they might wonder

13:45

why we don't have cities like that

13:47

here that are more pedestrian friendly have

13:49

sex is an urban planners is dedicated

13:52

his career to determining what makes a

13:54

city a place where people can he

13:56

joined us now to consider how europeans

13:58

are creatively and successfully creating

14:01

walkable cities. Jeff's

14:03

book is Walkable City, and

14:05

in this book he contends that Americans

14:07

can and should learn from Europeans to

14:10

make our cities more pedestrian friendly. Jeff,

14:12

thanks for being here. Hey, it's my

14:14

pleasure to be on a show that I enjoy. Oh,

14:17

good. Well, I am so interested in

14:19

this topic, and I've been spending 100

14:21

days a year in Europe

14:23

ever since I was a kid, and there has

14:25

been a huge revolution going on there in city

14:28

planning, and I've got to say it's bad news

14:30

for those who insist on driving their cars, isn't

14:32

it? Well, yes

14:34

and no. It's bad news for those who

14:36

choose to continue to drive their cars in

14:39

the face of measures that make it more

14:41

difficult for them to do so. However,

14:43

I would say the quality of life

14:45

for most folks in those cities has

14:47

been increasing at a steady clip as

14:50

more and more people realize they can live

14:52

more healthful and happy lives driving their cars

14:54

a bit less. Oh, yeah. If

14:56

I think of cities, Munich, Copenhagen, Paris, you

14:58

name it, 20, 30 years ago, the squares

15:02

were parking lots. Today the

15:04

squares have a subway station maybe, a

15:06

bus station, and there

15:08

are parks, there are green spaces. Tell

15:11

us about in general the evolution of city

15:13

planning in Europe in the time that you've

15:16

been studying it. Well, you know,

15:18

I was in Holland in

15:20

the 1970s as a very young person.

15:23

I do remember biking was already

15:26

more of a thing there than it was

15:28

here, but the city was awash

15:30

in motor vehicles. Now I look back at

15:32

the pictures and the Netherlands

15:35

and basically Northern Europe in the

15:37

1970s looked pretty much like the

15:39

US. I mean, the cars were a bit smaller,

15:41

but it was the same scene. Cars piled on

15:43

top of cars. I was up against the wall

15:45

with thin sidewalks and being crushed

15:48

against the wall. I felt like when I walked

15:50

around in cities a couple decades ago. Well, I

15:52

was hit by a mirror in Florence once because

15:54

those sidewalks were about 18 inches across. I remember.

15:56

That's right. It wasn't that bad,

15:58

but it was certainly noticeable. You know, you mentioned

16:00

Amsterdam. I was just in Amsterdam and there's a

16:02

big, wide, former street that had three or four

16:05

lanes of car traffic.

16:07

And it occurred to me, whoa, this street

16:10

is totally different now. There's no cars on

16:12

it. It's generally green. There

16:15

are four rails for two tram

16:17

cars and red paved

16:19

bike lanes and cobbled walking

16:21

lanes and the

16:23

sound of birds. And I'm

16:25

willing to bet that the number of people per

16:27

minute who are going about their daily

16:30

lives and getting where they need to go in the

16:32

bike lanes is probably 20 times what's

16:34

in the car lanes. And certainly the

16:36

tram lanes are equally efficient. What's

16:39

really remarkable when you compare different

16:42

modes of transport to which we dedicate

16:44

space in cities is how

16:47

do you move the most people most

16:49

efficiently? Because automobiles, in which

16:51

everyone is surrounded by two tons of metal

16:54

and a ton of space are really

16:56

a super inefficient way to get around. And

16:59

in fact, our really anti-city, Louis

17:02

Mumford writing back in the middle of the

17:04

20th century said the

17:06

right to bring a motor

17:08

car to any address in a

17:11

city is the right to destroy a city.

17:13

And we've seen that happen. Wow. And

17:15

in cities all over Europe now, they have what's called

17:18

a congestion fee. And unless you

17:20

live there or have a special license for

17:22

your car, if you'd go past that line

17:24

into the center, you have a bill to

17:26

pay. And I understand in

17:28

London that has decreased the

17:30

traffic congestion in the streets and

17:33

it has subsidized public transportation. And

17:36

people are now able to get around faster

17:38

and cheaper with more affordable public transit that

17:40

gets there quicker because the cars have been

17:43

incentivized by that congestion fee

17:45

not to go downtown. Well, what's really

17:47

interesting, Rick, is that when you're in the streets, you

17:49

have when you use congestion pricing or we call it

17:51

decongestion pricing in cities, actually

17:54

more people are able to access the

17:56

city by vehicle. And that's a bit

17:58

counterintuitive. But what happens? of course, is

18:00

that the highways and other streets get so overloaded

18:02

that no one's getting anywhere. And what

18:05

they found in a number of European cities,

18:07

like Stockholm and London and others, is

18:10

that more people were getting better use out

18:12

of the roads simply by charging a price

18:14

for travel that mirrored the value of that

18:16

travel. With cars driving and

18:18

certainly with cars parking in our cities, we

18:21

have one of the rare aspects of our

18:23

society in which it's actively

18:25

socialist in terms of you're not paying the

18:27

right price for the value. And when

18:29

you allow the market to do its work, actually

18:31

you get more efficient cities. And

18:33

drivers think they have some right to get

18:36

that subsidy and maybe they need to be

18:38

retrained. Jeff Speck is

18:40

joining us from his office in Brookline, Massachusetts

18:42

on Travel with Rick Steves as we look

18:44

at how to make even your city into

18:46

a more people-friendly environment. Jeff

18:49

has been consulting American cities

18:51

such as Hammond, Elkhart, Carmel

18:53

and New Albany in Indiana,

18:55

Grand Rapids, Cedar Rapids, Tampa

18:57

and Pensacola, Florida, Lowell and

18:59

Somerville, Mass and even Oklahoma

19:01

City on ways to revitalize

19:03

decaying downtowns and introduce pedestrian-friendly

19:05

walkways that can bring people together.

19:08

He wrote Walkable City, how downtown can

19:10

save America one step at a time.

19:13

It's considered a city planning classic and

19:15

it's been reissued in a revised edition.

19:18

So Jeff, let's talk about a couple of cities in

19:20

Europe. When you as a city

19:23

planner go to Paris, what strikes

19:25

you as innovative and something you'd like to

19:27

take home? Well, Mary

19:29

Dalgo is famous. Marie Dalgo has been

19:31

the mayor of Paris for some time.

19:34

She's a strong socialist. She

19:36

has done a number of things that you

19:38

would think would have ended her reign. But

19:41

she was reelected on the mandate of many

19:43

more people supporting what she's doing than are

19:45

against it, despite some of the very visible

19:47

protests. But she really has said we are

19:50

going to build a car-free, a

19:52

center city. They're essentially removing cars

19:54

almost entirely from the central part of

19:56

that city is the plan over time.

19:59

She's got a hundred and eighty- 870

20:01

miles of new bike lanes she's put in, tens

20:03

of thousands of parking spaces that she's gotten rid of.

20:06

She's also backing a 200 million euro

20:08

plan to turn the Champs-Élysées, you've probably

20:10

seen the drawings, into this multimodal linear

20:12

garden. It will still have cars in

20:15

it, but just many fewer cars moving

20:17

more slowly, bike lanes, walking

20:20

lanes, thousands of new trees. So

20:22

she basically, even before the pandemic, but

20:25

she responded to the pandemic by saying,

20:27

wow, we can hear the birds now,

20:29

we can breathe fresh air now, shouldn't

20:32

the city be like this all the

20:34

time? And she's been reelected on that

20:36

mandate. And something travelers really

20:38

are struck by and delighted by is

20:41

what's called the Peri Plage, the Paris Beach.

20:44

And there's that two lane highway along the

20:46

Seine River that is just, you'd think it'd

20:48

be critical to move the traffic around because

20:50

you've got busy, busy lanes

20:52

going fast without any stop signs

20:54

and so on along the river.

20:57

And suddenly that is no longer

20:59

accessible to cars. And in the summer they fill

21:02

it with sand and they move in palm trees

21:04

and you've got a beach. And

21:06

a big success. And for me,

21:09

it's brought in a lot of vitality. The

21:12

city no longer turns its back on the river,

21:14

but they pull up a lounge chair and enjoy

21:16

the river. And it's great for

21:18

biking, it's great for entertainment, it's great

21:20

for restaurants, and it's not great

21:22

for people who want to drive everywhere. But

21:24

again, I would say it could be great for those

21:27

people, they just don't need to drive. That's

21:29

true, that's true. Let's talk about

21:31

Barcelona because Barcelona is a very

21:33

interesting city in its design. They've

21:36

got the Eixample district is to me

21:39

wonderful. They've got this... Well,

21:41

you mentioned in your book the importance of having shorter

21:44

blocks and more compact.

21:47

The blocks in Barcelona are very small. And

21:50

there are hundreds and hundreds of them, the

21:52

Serdao plan that's famous for those chamfered blocks

21:54

that you're probably familiar with

21:57

where every block has this little chamfered

22:00

Every intersection is a little diamond-shaped

22:02

square. I love that. I

22:04

didn't know the name of it, but that is what

22:06

I think of when I think of Barcelona. Yes, Srda

22:09

was the urban designer. It's

22:11

one of the densest places in the world. In

22:13

fact, among the dense European cities, it may be

22:15

the densest. But they did something

22:17

remarkable that, of course, their plan helped them to

22:19

do, but most

22:22

cities have grid plans that will allow this,

22:24

was they introduced something called the Superblock Scheme.

22:26

And if you can picture a tic-tac-toe

22:29

board, a nine square, where

22:31

the hashtag is the

22:33

interior streets, on a whole

22:35

bunch of their nine squares, they shot

22:37

all of those blocks through traffic. So

22:40

they might have allowed them to make an L.

22:42

They might have put in bollards temporarily. People who

22:44

live there have ways to get in and out,

22:47

but they ceased to be part of the regional

22:50

transportation system for that

22:52

part of the city, and it

22:54

was a miracle. People who fought it

22:57

ended up loving it, and

22:59

they've added more and more Superblocks

23:01

to Barcelona since then. These

23:03

are sort of self-contained neighborhoods almost, where

23:05

you can walk to everything you need.

23:08

It's quite remarkable. Yeah, and I think

23:10

the difference is in the U.S., people

23:13

love to snip their blocks through traffic,

23:15

but then the streets on the perimeter

23:17

get wider and wider in

23:20

a response. In Barcelona, there was no

23:22

corresponding enlargement of any other streets. It

23:25

just created a circumstance in which more

23:27

people were happy walking and biking,

23:29

and therefore there were fewer people driving and

23:31

a happier outcome. Yeah. You

23:33

know, when we talk about happier outcomes, all over

23:36

Europe I'm finding cities are embracing

23:38

this idea of naked streets. It seems

23:40

like insane to have no

23:42

signs at an intersection, but apparently it

23:44

really works. Well, the

23:47

famous engineer who came up

23:49

with that concept used to stand

23:51

in front of the cameras and then

23:54

walk backwards into his naked intersections as

23:56

they were filming, and we would observe

23:58

as the cars would swerve around. around

24:00

him very slowly. But the

24:02

this idea of Malcolm

24:06

Gladwell calls it risk homeostasis and

24:08

he talks about how every human

24:11

is comfortable living with a certain amount of risk

24:13

and they will actually adjust their behavior to enjoy

24:15

that level of risk. And so

24:17

when you create an intersection that is

24:19

so clear and easy to understand people

24:21

just speed right through it. And

24:24

the European response is to make things

24:26

a little more confusing so that each

24:28

intersection is approached with care.

24:32

Some have suggested the American equivalent would

24:34

be that when you get into the

24:36

middle of a city in your car

24:38

your seat belt pops off and a

24:40

spike appears on the steering wheel. Yeah

24:42

well that you would stop. This

24:45

is Traveler Chris Steeves where we're

24:47

getting radical with city design here with

24:49

Jeff Speck and it's not radical in

24:51

Europe but it sure seems radical where

24:53

I'm sitting here in the United States.

24:55

Well don't tell my clients that I

24:57

mean I'm working in Scranton, I'm working

24:59

in Maui, Orlando, Hyannis,

25:03

Massachusetts and they

25:05

hopefully don't believe that I'm radical. What

25:07

we're doing is we're sharing best practices

25:10

that have succeeded not only in Europe

25:12

but in a bunch of American cities

25:14

as you've observed in the Pacific Northwest you know

25:16

where a lot of great gains have been made

25:18

towards making cities more walkable. And it's exciting to

25:20

know there are people like you working

25:23

on this very diligently. Jeff's the city

25:25

planner and he's the author of Walkable

25:27

City. Jeff tell me a little bit

25:29

about this notion I read in

25:32

your book Walkable City where you

25:34

don't even have curbs. What you have is bricks

25:36

that go from building to building all the way

25:38

across the street so you don't know what's really

25:41

pedestrian and what's for cars. Well

25:44

that's called shared space and

25:47

the ultimate example of it which

25:50

you can find a video on

25:52

YouTube called Plinkton regenerated. P-O-Y-N-T-O-N, Plinkton

25:54

is a city in England where

25:57

they did that. They had a downtown that was just

26:00

dying from too much traffic, there was a sense

26:02

of just congestion and danger and they

26:04

basically put in kind of a what

26:06

I would call a peanut about like

26:09

a double roundabout where the whole

26:11

thing was paver and cobbled and

26:14

removed all the signals. But

26:16

this idea of creating streets that are

26:18

plazas that are paved from edge to

26:20

edge like plazas in which

26:22

everyone's expected to mix at extremely low

26:24

speed is appropriate in certain

26:27

dense you know downtown centers and

26:29

town centers. I have only

26:32

worked on one project that was able to pull

26:34

that off because it does not sit

26:36

comfortably within the manuals of

26:39

the American traffic engineering profession but more

26:42

and more American cities are interested in

26:44

creating these spaces. Now part

26:46

of the the challenge I would imagine

26:48

is giving people who really are committed

26:50

to driving from city to city a

26:53

convenient way in an economic way to

26:55

get out of their car and then

26:57

become a walking visitor and

26:59

in Europe there are it's pretty routine

27:01

now where you have the city ringed

27:03

by government subsidized inexpensive parking

27:06

lots that come with a shuttle

27:08

bus that takes you into the

27:10

center or a parking

27:12

lot by a suburban subway

27:15

station and then you just leave your car

27:17

hop on the train go downtown and

27:19

you get around with public transit or with

27:21

one of these cheap rental out of the

27:23

bike rack kind of public bicycles or

27:26

just walking around. What's

27:28

your take on these park and ride kind

27:30

of approaches? Well I think that you

27:33

have to make it worth it for people so

27:36

it works in Europe and in a few

27:38

limited American places because

27:40

the walk once you get

27:43

out of your car is actually

27:45

a better experience than driving. I

27:48

have in my book what I call the general theory

27:50

of walkability in which I talk about

27:52

the fact that if people are going to make

27:54

the choice to walk in America the walk

27:56

has to be better than the drive and to do

27:58

that it has to satisfy four things simultaneously. simultaneously.

28:01

It has to be useful, it has to be

28:03

safe, it has to be comfortable, and it

28:05

has to be interesting. And if you can

28:07

accomplish those four things, in most American cities, it's

28:09

just a small portion of the city where that

28:11

is possible because you have the mixed use to

28:13

begin with, right? A walk being useful

28:16

means that you're in a mixed use area

28:18

with a proper balance of most of the

28:20

aspects of daily life. And not

28:22

many of our neighborhoods pull that off.

28:24

But in our older neighborhoods, particularly our

28:26

older commercial neighborhoods, our central business districts

28:28

and our old downtowns, main

28:31

streets, that's where that usefulness

28:33

is possible. And if it exists, then

28:35

you just supplement that by making the

28:38

streets safe, which is actually the easiest

28:40

thing to do because the cities own the streets. So

28:42

the cities can very quickly restripe their streets

28:44

to make them safer and more multimodal, welcoming

28:47

bikes and transit. And then the

28:49

longer slog is the

28:51

comfortable and interesting part

28:53

of the discussion because that's basically the outcome

28:55

of what buildings, what private buildings mostly are

28:58

lining the streets and are they

29:01

shaping the space in a proper way. As

29:03

an urban designer, I spend a lot of time thinking

29:05

about the shape of the space. We like to make

29:07

our streets as outdoor living rooms. And what does that

29:09

mean? It means they have good edges.

29:11

It means they really hold you comfortably. So

29:14

we spend a lot of time on that. Jeff

29:16

Speck is with us on Travel with

29:18

Rick Steves as we look at examples

29:20

for turning cities into walkable, people-friendly spaces.

29:23

Jeff's 2012 book, Walkable City, is

29:25

the best-selling city planning book of the

29:27

past decade and is out in an

29:29

updated edition. He's also

29:32

written Walkable City Rules, 101

29:34

Steps to Making Better Places.

29:37

Jeff's TED Talks and YouTube videos on

29:39

the topic have been viewed by millions.

29:41

His website is speckdempsey.com. Jeff,

29:45

it's been so much fun talking to you. We're

29:47

just about out of time, but I'd love to

29:49

let you be the tour guide right now. And

29:51

with your ability to see things through

29:54

the eyes and the sensibilities of a city

29:56

planner, what can we travelers do

29:58

to enjoy our visits to

30:00

whatever city we're going to, let's say in

30:02

Europe, a little bit more. What do

30:04

you look for and how can that help us? Well, I'll

30:07

give you one tip, which I use myself, which I think

30:09

anyone is capable of doing, which is

30:11

whenever I'm about to book a hotel in

30:13

a foreign city, particularly a European city, I'll

30:16

go on the Google Maps and I'll find

30:18

the medieval neighborhood. That's the neighborhood

30:20

where the streets are cranky, where they're narrow,

30:22

where the blocks are tiny. Sometimes

30:25

the best hotels, the Hotel de Ville

30:27

or whatever, are located in the Enlightenment

30:29

part of town or the Beaux-Arts part

30:31

of town. Those can all

30:34

be great to see for spectacle

30:36

and for energy or for monuments,

30:38

but it's always the medieval part

30:40

of the city that's the most

30:42

walkable, most delightful, most mysterious that

30:44

has the tiny shops that can

30:46

only hold a non-chain store, the

30:48

special mom and pop places. I

30:51

always find those neighborhoods from my hotel. I

30:53

can think of several towns right now where

30:56

that's exactly the case. Barcelona's

30:58

Gothic Quarter is a perfect example,

31:00

Rome's medieval quarter. What's fun

31:02

is even American cities have the oldest ones.

31:04

We have a Gothic Quarter or so it

31:07

would seem in Boston, in New York City,

31:09

Wall Street is that place. Our

31:12

older cities have those as well here. Jeff

31:14

Speck, thanks so much for joining us and

31:16

happy travels and let's all hope for a

31:18

more walkable urban world. Thanks, Rick. It's

31:20

been great to join you here. They live in just

31:22

enough. Just enough for

31:26

the city. You'll

31:34

find web links to our guests in

31:36

the notes for each week's show at

31:38

ricksteeds.com/radio. If city life gets

31:40

to be a little too much for you, maybe

31:43

you'd rather just get out of town. Well,

31:45

up next, we'll look at how the

31:47

wonders among us outsiders in nomadic communities

31:50

have often been a sort of counterbalance

31:52

to the great empires of human history.

31:55

Anthony Satin explains next on Travel

31:57

with Rick Steves. I've

32:01

long been fascinated by nomads. I've

32:03

encountered them in my travels, the

32:05

Bedouins in Morocco and Palestine, Kurds

32:08

in Turkey, Sami people in Scandinavia,

32:10

Roma. And I've wondered about how the

32:12

cards are stacked against any group of

32:14

people who don't want to settle down,

32:17

who don't want to own land and build fences

32:19

and send their children to the same school as

32:21

everybody else, so they can

32:23

fit into the mold as dedicated by

32:25

the dominant settled culture. The urge to

32:27

move exists within all of us, yet

32:30

half of the world's population lives in

32:32

city. The nomadic societies that

32:34

played a key role in shaping our history

32:36

had no written history, and today most of

32:38

them are gone. Anthony Satin

32:40

digs deep into this overlooked side

32:42

of history and how the mobile

32:45

and settled have come together

32:47

and diverged through the centuries. It's

32:49

all in his book, Nomads, the Wanderers Who

32:52

Shaped Our World. Anthony joins us today to

32:54

talk about the nomadic societies in and around

32:56

Europe. Anthony, thanks so much for being

32:58

with us. Great, thanks for having me on the

33:00

show. So is it

33:02

true that nomadic people never wrote

33:05

down their own history? Yeah,

33:07

almost never. It's an oral tradition and that's

33:09

part of the sort of the makeup of

33:13

their internal relations. Everybody gathers together

33:15

and they tell stories. When you

33:17

travel in and around Europe, I'm

33:19

talking Europe, I'm talking North Africa,

33:22

the Middle East and so on,

33:24

you're very likely to encounter these

33:26

cultures, maybe not under the stars

33:28

that attend an oasis, but

33:31

in the market or semi-nomadic settled

33:33

and so on. What's the

33:35

state of the Bedouin people in

33:38

North Africa and the Middle East? The big

33:40

news is they're still there and there's still quite a

33:42

lot of them. They're always

33:44

under threat. Government's always wanting to

33:46

make them settle and offering

33:48

these two carrots of education for the kids and

33:51

health care for the elderly. But

33:53

the one constant is that they keep on

33:55

doing what they've always done and that is

33:57

moving around, less of them than there

33:59

were. they're still doing it. You

34:01

know I space

34:19

for them to keep on doing it if governments

34:22

will let them let them take on

34:24

that land. And you know you mentioned up

34:27

in the frozen north and down in the

34:29

north, a lot of nomads, there's gold in them,

34:31

there are hills. Yeah that can change all

34:34

of a sudden. That's the story of

34:36

the US as well, you know the western

34:38

tribes, you know in the US in the

34:40

19th century lost out because of the gold

34:42

rush. You know one of the most fascinating

34:44

courses I ever had when I was at

34:46

the University of Washington was based on a

34:48

book called Reflections on the Basic Causes of

34:50

Human Misery. It's a fascinating

34:52

book and the takeaway was the

34:54

most un-miserable societies were people who

34:56

lived on land that nobody wanted.

34:59

And also who lived in a bonded community like

35:01

that with a narrative. And in a way this

35:03

thing about oral history is important because so many

35:06

of us and in so many different countries I go

35:08

to have lost that sense of a shared narrative of

35:11

who we are. Now in Turkey there

35:13

are a lot of Kurds and I understand the

35:15

word curd actually comes from the

35:17

the root for the word for nomad. There's

35:20

like tens of millions of these curds

35:22

in eastern Turkey. It's one of the

35:24

largest, you could call it nations

35:26

without states. They don't have

35:28

their own boundary. They're not able to have

35:30

their own government but they're still thriving

35:32

in eastern Turkey it seems like as

35:34

a community. What is your take on

35:37

the Kurds? Well this is a really

35:39

hot potato politically and not

35:41

just in Turkey but in Iraq as

35:43

well. Yeah the Kurds fought Kurdistan. You

35:46

don't want to say that word Kurdistan

35:48

in certain circles. No exactly, exactly but

35:50

you have to wonder what happened after

35:52

the first world war when you know

35:55

when the British and the French were carving up

35:57

the Middle East. There were the states for the

35:59

Arabs. talk about Armenia for

36:01

the Armenians but they

36:36

are very passive and sensitive to their needs?

36:38

Certainly and also because there is a recognition

36:40

of there is a value to hurting reindeer.

36:44

I write in my book about the Bactiari in

36:46

Iran. Nomads in Iran

36:48

produce a significant amount of

36:50

meat because they have all these

36:52

sheep, millions of

36:54

them and they sell them into market.

36:56

This is an important part of the

36:59

Iranian economy. It's almost part of the

37:01

environment, the ecosystem is to have people taking care

37:03

of the sheep so they thrive. Exactly.

37:06

The problem is there is a long historical

37:08

view and the reason why I wrote this

37:10

book is because in our histories, our histories

37:13

are simply not fit for purpose because they

37:15

don't reflect the reality of the relationship between

37:17

the nomadic and settled people which

37:19

is one of mutual dependence. We

37:22

are looking at the underappreciated side of history

37:24

with author Anthony Satin right now on Travel

37:26

with Rick Steeves. He is

37:29

the author of Nomads, The Wanderers Who

37:31

Shaped Our World, as well as earlier

37:33

historical titles on Egypt and North Africa.

37:37

From his own travels, Anthony's collected

37:39

stories from 12,000 years of nomadic

37:41

societies, most recently with

37:43

Bactiari nomads in Iran. Anthony's

37:46

own wanderings have led him to Umbria in

37:48

Italy where he's joining us from his home

37:50

studio. I want

37:52

to get more into the specifics about nomadic culture but

37:55

there's two groups I want to finish in our

37:57

survey before we dive into that and that is Irish,

37:59

Irish, and Irish. travelers or tinkers and

38:01

the Roma or the Gypsy community.

38:03

First of all, when we go

38:06

to Ireland, Anthony, you just can't

38:08

help but run into comments or

38:10

references to the travelers. Who

38:13

are these people? And is that actually a

38:15

community like we're talking about the Samhaines and

38:17

the Kurds and the Bedouins? Yes, it is

38:19

still a community. I mean, a shrinking community,

38:21

but it's definitely still a community. And we

38:23

have them in England as

38:26

well. They're our travelers and they

38:28

move around and traditionally they had

38:30

at least for the last 50

38:32

years in my lifetime. They

38:34

were people who would deal in all sorts

38:36

of things that other people didn't want to

38:39

deal with, scrap metal or whatever it was.

38:41

They were functioning on the fringe of

38:43

communities, literally, and in the fringe of economy.

38:46

Historically, do we have something like that in the

38:48

United States? You have your

38:50

great Native American tribes in the United

38:52

States. Well, apart from that, because I

38:54

mean, I'm thinking you're talking about not

38:56

an ethnic group so much as just

38:58

a society that would rather have a

39:00

nomadic lifestyle and sell scrap metal or

39:02

something. Oh yeah, but you still do

39:04

have in the United States

39:07

a vast number of people who

39:09

choose to live in what was

39:11

called wheel estate rather than real

39:13

estate. And then the movie Nomadland

39:15

absolutely pins that story brilliantly. There

39:17

you go. Wheel estate. I've never

39:19

heard that. That's great. One

39:22

more reason to read your book, Nomads,

39:24

The Wanderers Who Shaped Our World. The

39:27

final European group of nomadic people I'd

39:29

like to mention is the Roma or

39:31

the Gypsies. What's the story with the

39:33

Roma people? The Roma people are A

39:36

people. I mean, unlike sort of Irish

39:38

tinkers or whatever who are more of

39:40

not such an ethnic group as an

39:42

occupation. The Roma are an ethnic

39:44

group. Well, their origins are

39:47

somewhat obscure, but it probably came from

39:49

India originally, but a long, long time

39:51

ago. And they can trace their history back

39:53

at least to the Roman Empire. And

39:55

that's partly their name and

39:57

from Romania, but they are their

40:00

are not well received in most

40:02

places where they're found. All

40:05

European societies were nomadic at first and

40:07

they eventually settled down and bought

40:10

land and made fences and changed

40:12

from herders to farmers. Is

40:15

what the difference with the Roma community is

40:17

they just never decided to morph

40:19

into that which fits better into the

40:21

modern mould. So they've been a disadvantaged

40:23

group because they've held on to those

40:26

pre-settled ways. Yeah, absolutely. And

40:28

maybe another way of looking at them

40:30

is with an element of fascination as

40:32

in they are part of our story

40:34

as it all known as are. Oh,

40:37

it's amazing because I visited fascinating Roma

40:39

communities in Romania. A

40:41

big question for me lately is I'm

40:43

just perplexed with the proper term. Of

40:46

course, we've all grown up saying gypsies and

40:48

now I understand Roma is the

40:50

preferred term. Do the Roma people, are

40:53

they unified in this desire to change

40:55

the name? Of course, gypsies is a

40:57

misnomer because it

41:00

says they're from Egypt when they

41:02

weren't from Egypt. Yeah, exactly. But

41:04

do all Roma consider gypsy to be derogatory?

41:07

I think there is a sense of that

41:09

it has the wrong connotation for them. You

41:12

don't often hear people sort of waxing lyrical about

41:14

the gypsy. No, but that's because

41:16

people have given that up to the notion

41:19

they're all thieves and so on. And

41:21

when you go to Spain, you've got a pride

41:23

in the gypsy community. There's a group

41:25

called the Gypsy Kings. You go to

41:28

Granada, which has got 50,000 gypsies, I

41:30

think, and they call themselves gypsies. Yeah,

41:32

the whole flamenco culture comes out of

41:34

that gypsy. Yeah, I mean, you wouldn't

41:36

say a Roma cave in Granada. You'd

41:38

say a gypsy cave. No, exactly. That's

41:41

true. I don't know. It's a

41:43

complicated thing. Anthony Satin is a fellow

41:45

with the Royal Geographic Society and he's

41:47

hosted TV and radio documentaries on travel

41:50

for the BBC. We're

41:52

talking with him right now on Travel with

41:54

Rick Steves. Throughout his most recent book,

41:56

No Masks, his website

41:58

is anthonysatin.com. spelled

42:01

S-A-T-T-I-N. So,

42:04

Anthony, basically, why

42:06

do nomads wonder? No,

42:10

the real question is why do

42:12

we not all wonder? Wondering is

42:14

our natural state. You know,

42:16

we make a journey at the beginning

42:19

of our life from the womb to the light

42:21

and religion tells us we make a

42:23

journey at the end of our life, all religions tell us we make

42:25

a journey at the end of our life to the other world, and

42:28

in between some of us choose not to

42:30

move and it's just such a strange thing.

42:33

Yes, well that's very fundamental.

42:35

So that really divides

42:37

us and as you mentioned in your

42:39

book, long long long long time ago

42:41

there were 40 million nomadic people and

42:44

today and that was 100% of humanity

42:46

apparently and today there's 40 million nomadic

42:48

people but it's less than 1% of

42:50

humanity. So there's as many wanderers today

42:52

as there was 12,000 years ago. Is

42:54

that right? Yeah, and think about the

42:56

weirdness of living a subtle life where

42:59

we were constantly being told we have

43:01

to walk 10,000 steps. I mean this

43:04

to a nomad this is just ridiculous. Imagine

43:06

a nomad with a little wristwatch that showed

43:09

how many steps you can take. I'm curious

43:13

about just the way nomadic societies work

43:15

and I would imagine this is pretty

43:17

much consistent across the board. Gender

43:19

roles, briefly, what are the traditional gender

43:22

roles with the nomadic community? Well, this

43:24

is one of the surprises that I

43:26

found looking back into history and these

43:28

three famous nomads that we can

43:30

name-check who get this bad reputation. They tell her

43:33

the Hun, Genghis Khan and Timor or

43:35

Tambourlin and for them women

43:37

are absolutely central to all the decision-making,

43:39

all the sort of gathering of the

43:42

grandees and the elders. There are women and

43:45

Genghis Khan's wife is the one

43:47

who sits beside him

43:49

the whole way through the building

43:51

up of his administration of his

43:53

empire and that plays through to

43:55

today in a lot if not

43:57

all nomadic societies. Women have a

44:00

central role. You know, here is

44:02

a very interesting moment or image that

44:04

might represent what you're saying. I

44:07

was in Eastern Turkey hanging out

44:09

with a Kurdish nomadic family in

44:12

their black hair tent, right? They have these

44:14

black goat hair tents that go all the

44:16

way back to biblical times. The

44:18

mother was there with the children and

44:21

the little boy was playing his

44:23

eagle-boned flute. And this was

44:25

amazing just to see the mom making

44:27

the tea and the boy playing his

44:29

eagle-boned flute. And then over the

44:31

bluff, way in the distance,

44:33

I couldn't see him, the dad would

44:35

play his eagle-boned flute. So the boy

44:37

knew the dad was okay, the dad

44:40

knew the boy was okay, and the

44:42

dad was out of sight with the

44:44

herds, and the mom was

44:46

in the tent with the kids, and the

44:48

eagle-boned flute was connecting them and

44:50

connecting through times for millennia, literally

44:53

thousands of years. But

44:55

that kind of represented the fundamental

44:57

situation. And it seems

44:59

that has not changed very much through

45:02

the centuries. No, and how beautiful is

45:04

that as an image? I mean, I've

45:06

got goosebumps for that. I

45:08

love that. It's so beautiful. I'm

45:10

so thankful for that moment and

45:12

to know that what I was listening

45:15

to was so representative of

45:17

a beautiful, beautiful way of life that

45:19

is struggling in the confines of our

45:22

modern kind of settled world. Well, it's

45:24

struggling, but it's still there. And

45:26

this is the important thing, and it hasn't

45:29

gone. There's this image that I love of

45:31

history as a path picked through ruins, and

45:34

the suggestion that history is about people

45:36

who build things, who build the pyramids,

45:39

the coliseum or whatever. But

45:41

I think before long, we're going to

45:43

be reading histories about the people, not

45:45

who built monuments or destroyed them, but

45:48

about the people who maintained the natural

45:50

world around them. Yes. There's

45:52

an ever greater value in people that are

45:54

connected with the natural world as it becomes

45:57

an existential challenge to preserve it. that

46:00

Kurdish community, we were talking about the

46:02

challenges in their life. They

46:04

talked about how the Turkish government had offered

46:06

them land, offered them schools, trying

46:08

to bribe them to

46:11

settle down and speak the

46:13

same language and join the dominant culture.

46:16

They really found it was really offensive

46:18

to their own, what they

46:20

treasured and honored. They refused

46:22

it. That's kind of the disadvantage

46:24

that nomadic communities have around the world, isn't

46:26

it, that in order to be embraced by

46:29

the dominant culture, they've really got

46:31

to abandon theirs. It is

46:33

a problem and language is absolutely key

46:35

to that because in a way the

46:37

language – and I know this for instance with

46:39

some of the Saharan tribes –

46:42

in Egypt for instance, they're forced

46:44

to speak and learn Egyptian

46:47

Arabic which deprives them

46:49

of their dialect. Oh

46:51

yes. And that's something that those of us who

46:53

don't have to struggle to preserve our language aren't

46:56

very sensitive to, but if a society is not

46:58

allowed to have its own language, that

47:00

is over the line. That cannot

47:02

be allowed. They've got to defend

47:04

the right to speak their language.

47:07

Exactly. But I

47:09

wonder, in the US, the Native

47:11

American languages, are they still current?

47:14

Do people still talk? I don't know.

47:16

I don't know. But I do know

47:19

that when there's a struggle with an ethnic group in

47:21

Europe, that is a nation without a state, a

47:24

group of people that have their nation

47:26

but they don't have a political boundary,

47:28

the bone of contention is a lot

47:30

of time, can we have education for

47:32

our people? And I know for indigenous

47:34

people in Central America, the

47:36

government of Guatemala will give them an education, but it's

47:38

Spanish. And they say, no, we want it in our

47:40

language. And they don't get it, so they become an

47:43

underclass. That's problematic. Very

47:45

problematic. So this is Travel with Rick Steves.

47:47

We've been talking with Anthony Thatten. And his

47:50

book is Nomads, The Wanderers Who Shaped Our

47:52

World. I've been fascinated by nomads

47:54

ever since I've been traveling because as

47:56

you travel, if you reach out, you

47:58

find the resilience of the world. nomadic

48:01

communities and the deep history and how

48:03

there is this little dosey-doe

48:06

between the people who

48:08

are unsettled nomads and people who

48:10

are settled what we would call

48:12

civilized which is a horribly ethnocentric

48:14

way to put it. Today

48:17

Anthony we're out of time but I would just

48:19

like to kind of wrap it up with what

48:21

is the future for nomadic peoples? Is

48:23

there a sort of a best scenario

48:26

and is it possible to have

48:28

culturally sensitive tourism? Can that be

48:31

a good thing? I

48:33

don't think things are as bleak as they

48:35

might be for a lot of nomadic peoples.

48:37

I think there are even

48:39

more than we talked about politics and

48:41

how governments like to settle and probably

48:43

even more dangerous for them is global

48:45

warming, climate change. For

48:47

instance in Mongolia which has a long,

48:50

long tradition of nomadic people because most

48:52

of the country is unfit for farming.

48:55

Because of the summers and the winters are so hot and

48:57

the winters are so cold, a lot

48:59

of Mongolia's nomads are now living,

49:02

given up and there's now a tent city

49:05

around the capital and they're all

49:07

looking for jobs. So

49:09

that's their greatest. I think you see

49:11

the same dynamic in Palestine with the

49:13

Bedouins. Yes, you do. Yes,

49:16

you do. But at the same time

49:18

they are still doing what they do and

49:20

they are still who they are and I'm

49:22

optimistic. That's interesting. And then

49:25

just if we're curious as people who

49:27

want to have a broader perspective and

49:29

learn from our travels, is

49:31

there a culturally sensitive way

49:33

to and can that bring economy

49:35

in a healthy way to these communities to

49:39

weave that into our travels as tourists?

49:41

Yes, I think it obviously has to

49:43

be small scale, low key.

49:46

Can't have thousands of people turning up and

49:48

hanging out with one particular family. Then

49:52

it becomes more of a spectacle instead of

49:54

a … Exactly. But

49:56

I mean some of the families that I stayed with

49:58

in Iran … For instance,

50:00

that was entirely transactional. I

50:04

was a paying guest. It was like staying in

50:06

someone's home, except their home was a tent. Again,

50:09

this is Travel with Rick Steves. We've been

50:11

talking with Anthony Satin. His book is Nomads,

50:13

The Wanders Who Shaped Our World. Anthony,

50:16

thank you so much for your interest

50:18

in nomadic communities and for sharing it

50:20

so eloquently in your book. Thank

50:23

you for this opportunity of talking about this

50:25

really important topic. Travel

50:29

with Rick Steves is produced by

50:31

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50:33

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50:35

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50:44

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50:47

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50:49

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50:51

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50:53

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50:55

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50:57

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