My hope is Bringing Back Main Street will be a catalyst for families to look at their town and ask themselves how they can make it better for people.
Alex Powers
Alex Powers is an educator and father of three young daughters living in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. His latest children’s book, Bringing Back Main Street, empowers kids to bring TLC to our downtowns. Read on for Alex’s thoughtful tips for how to talk about our built environment with kids. Plus, how we caregivers can build more resilient and sustainable urban centers.
Tell us a bit about yourself!
My wife and I have been elementary school teachers for the past seven years. During this time, the chapters of our life stories have quickly gone from one life-changing moment to the next. From starting teaching to purchasing a home, a lot of life can happen in seven years. Perhaps some of the greatest chapters in our story are our three daughters: Caroline (4), Savannah (2), and Amelia (1 month). As a popular TLC show says in its intro, “we are officially outdaughtered.” Life at this stage is busy and stressful, but being a “girl dad” is a great gig.
As life changes, interests change. Just the other day, Shelby (wifey) and I were talking about how our interests have drastically changed from high school to now. In high school, my focus was sports, video games, and I wanted my car to have a big speaker system that shook my neighbors’ windows when I pulled in. And at the time, I never read books and I couldn’t stand little kids.
Boy have things changed!
Now, I have seven years’ experience teaching elementary school students, I write children’s books, and I only care if the back seat of my car can fit three car seats in it. Lastly, my sports interests have completely diminished, and I have stumbled into an interest in learning about what makes cities great and how city planning and design have a direct impact on our lives, especially the impact it has on the family unit. With that said, I took on the task to write my newest children’s book titled Bringing Back Main Street.
What inspired you to write Bringing Back Main Street?
Have you ever caught yourself in a moment where your brain starts to question something that is the status quo?
For me, my epiphany was related to car-dependency and the absolutely insane growth happening in Texas. My hometown near Dallas has been completely swallowed up by highway expansions, cars, and dangerous road design. It became glaringly obvious when I would visit my parents during my time in college.
Today, I look at my area in Fort Worth and see the writing on the wall here too. As people say, “Highway expansions, good. Sprawl, good. A new strip mall, good,” I begin to wonder if this is actually good. As towns add onto their concrete jungles, they chip away at the best parts of the town itself, which I believe to be places like Main Street.
My hope is Bringing Back Main Street will be a catalyst for families to look at their town and ask themselves how they can make it better for people.
What role have your daughters or students played in shaping the ideas in this book?
One of my third graders came up to me during class one day and asked me if I played in my backyard as a kid. Unsure if he was serious, I told him I did play in my backyard, but I really enjoyed riding my bike more than anything. He and nearby students started chiming in and saying they don’t play outside and their parents won’t let them out of the house because they think it is unsafe for kids to explore without an adult (might I add that these kids live in very safe neighborhoods and what would be considered a great town).
For me, Bringing Back Main Street is about making places that are safe, accessible, and enjoyable for everyone.
That conversation with my students was the catalyst that drove me to create my first draft.
Can you give parents a couple of suggestions for activities or discussion questions to enrich their reading of Bringing Back Main Street with their kids?
Yes! Plain and simple: explore your area by foot or by bike.
When you do this, you see your environment differently. You begin to see more and notice some things you would have never seen while in the backseat of a fast-moving car.
I suggest asking your child questions about the places you visit and investigate them through the lens of safety and accessibility. Why don’t you ever see people walking to this McDonalds? Why do people hang out and play at the park and not in a parking lot? Would you rather walk on the sidewalk next to fast-moving cars or walk along the sidewalk with slower moving cars? You will realize kids will learn through these discussions without you needing to get preachy with them.
We love your book’s message that children benefit when we design cities and infrastructure to encourage their independence, creativity, and connection to community. What can grown-ups do to promote more kid-centered, sustainable design in their own cities and towns?
As an educator, I feel like I need to assign some homework here. First, please check out Bringing Back Main Street on Amazon; I would be forever grateful. Second, parents, I cannot encourage this enough: check out Strong Towns.
Strong Towns is a nonprofit that seeks to help towns and educate its followers about how to make towns financially strong and safer for people. I would highly encourage watching Strong Towns’ YouTube series that ties to one of their newest books titled Confessions of a Recovering Engineer. It will challenge you to think differently about how your town, especially its roadways, needs a complete mindset-shift in order to fix an unsustainable system.
I would also like to thank The Parents’ Climate Community for letting me contribute and support.