PREVIEW: Urban Planning Pop with Pondless

PREVIEW: Urban Planning Pop with Pondless The War on Cars · Jun 30, 2026

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Concept

suburbanization

The process of people moving away from city centers into spread-out neighborhoods called suburbs. This style of development usually requires everyone to own a car to get around because homes, schools, and shops are built far apart.

Term

NIMBY

A term for people who don't want new buildings, apartments, or train stations built near their homes, even if they agree those things are good for the city overall. It stands for "Not In My Back Yard."

Person

Jane Jacobs

A famous writer and activist who fought to protect neighborhoods from being destroyed by giant highways in the mid-20th century. She believed cities should be built for people walking and living in them, not just for cars driving through them.

LIVE

Hello, I'm Sarah Goodyear.

What you're about to hear is an excerpt from a Patreon bonus episode of The War on Cars.

To get full access, go to patreon.com slash The War on Cars pod and subscribe.

So, you do these songs and, for instance, your latest release, and we'll play a little bit of this in a second, your latest release is called Add Another Lane.

Let's just take a quick listen to some of that.

All right, first of all, tell me about writing this song.

How did that come to you?

I was thinking about specifically Orange County, California, where there are all these genuinely lovely small towns kind of spread out but filled in with all suburbs and everything like that.

So many of them, the original format is basically gone, whether it's by suburbanization or by freeway construction, and it kind of led me to write this song.

It also goes into, on the second verse, talking about modernization, so instead of talking about just suburbia, talking about how a lot of the time the proposed solution to a lot of our urban form problems in the U.S. is just high rises everywhere.

You know, I don't think this is something that most people are particularly wanting, but if you look on Reddit and stuff like that, a lot of people are like, why is this development not a high rise?

When a lot of the time it doesn't really fit a place. I know that I'm not trying to be all nimby here.

No, no, no, that's okay. This is a safe space.

Yeah, but I think we can agree with Jane Jacobs on there is like a nice comfortable density of things.

About this episode

Musician Pondless joins host Sarah Goodyear to discuss the inspiration behind the song "Add Another Lane," a track targeting the suburbanization and freeway expansion of Orange County, California. The conversation explores how highway construction has erased the character of small towns and dives into the debate over urban density. Pondless shares thoughts on the push for high-rise developments versus finding a comfortable, human-scale density inspired by urban theorist Jane Jacobs, offering a unique musical perspective on modern urban planning challenges.

Jane Jacobs NIMBY suburbanization

Original notes

***This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, plus ad-free versions of regular episodes, merch discounts, presale tickets to live shows, and more, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars.***

The musical artist known as Pondless, who as a civilian goes by the name of Aaron Oliver, writes and performs pop songs about urban planning. If that sounds kind of out there, well, so is he, in the best way possible. We talked with him about why this country is divided into Houstons and New York Cities, why Boston does not exist, and how he came to write a love song to Robert Moses.

Pondless is @itspondless on Instagram and TikTok.

Our bestselling new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, published by Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House, is available wherever books are sold.

www.thewaroncars.org

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