Jason Slaughter, Creator of Not Just Bikes
Jason Slaughter created and produces Not Just Bikes, one of the best YouTube channels, in my opinion, on par with Low Tech Magazine and Do the Math. He makes videos about urban planning and city design based on his observations after moving to the Netherlands and reflecting on why he liked cities there more than any other place.
If you can’t imagine urban planning and city design entertaining and engaging, watch a few videos.
From Wikitubia’s page on Jason:
Jason grew up in London, Ontario, Canada. Since then, he has moved 29 times, living in many countries including the US, the UK, Belgium, and Taiwan. He chose to stay in Amsterdam, Netherlands, for reasons he has explained in his YouTube videos. He lives with his wife and two children. Outside of YouTube, he has had an extensive career as a Project Management Executive, primarily for tech companies and start-ups.
Not Just Bikes’ first video, uploaded on 7 July 2019, was a POV demonstration of him using the Strawinskylaan bicycle parking garage in Amsterdam. His next video, What Makes a City Great?, was an introduction to his channel where he explained his backstory and the topic he would cover in his videos: why Dutch cities are so great. Over the next year, he uploaded 25 video essays on this topic.
In his video One Year of Not Just Bikes, he explained he had completed his original goal for the channel, yet would continue to upload videos as he had many more topics he wanted to cover. Shortly after this, he began a new series of video essays about why American and Canadian cities are financially insolvent, collaborating with the organization Strong Towns.
595, Jason Slaughter, Creator of Not Just Bikes, part 1: Ending Car Dependency
Watch Jason’s Not Just Bikes videos. I’ve watched them all. They’re informative, engaging, funny, researched, provocative, and keep you coming back, but not like Netflix stuff designed to addict.
After you watch a few, listen to our conversation. In our conversation he shares more depth than his videos of his motivations, how he makes the videos, interacts with his audience, feels frustration from some, learns from others, and more. He shares how life could be versus how it is. In this conversation he shares more about his wife and children, which drive his passion and choices probably most of all.
We also bond on how our searches for a better life revealed huge cultural myths that, if we never try living differently, we never think to question or consider alternatives could exist. If, before trying to live differently, anyone asked, we both would have figured anything different than how mainstream North America taught us must be worse. Beyond worse, incomparably worse, even life-threateningly worse.
The when we tried, we found it better. The myths fell apart. Yet one frustration arose and grew: nobody believes us. Words can’t convey what Beethoven’s ninth sounds like live, how a ripe fruit in season tastes, or how freedom from oil dependence feels.
But at least in this conversation, I believe we understood each other, so you can hear what freedom and connection sound like and mean in ways no addict can understand. I think you’ll enjoy what we share, even if we’re both frustrated at how misunderstood we feel by most people, even (especially) when we’re inviting them to open themselves to something they’ll enjoy more than their blissful ignorance.