City building after the bill comes due.
The gist
Go Cultivate! is a policy-minded conversation about city building, local finance, and the daily tradeoffs behind streets, housing, downtowns, and growth. Its strongest episodes turn a specific corridor, comprehensive plan, or struggling downtown into a practical lesson for community leaders.
PRESS PLAY
Find your next episode
About Go Cultivate!
Go Cultivate! sits at the intersection of planning, public finance, and everyday civic frustration. Its central concern is not just whether a city is growing, but whether that growth can pay for the streets, services, neighborhoods, and public trust it creates. Kevin Shepard often begins from a specific place or controversy, then opens the conversation into the larger pattern behind it. That structure gives the show a useful working rhythm. A fast-growing city like Frisco becomes a way to think about infrastructure timing, land development, downtown evolution, and leadership over time. Killeen's comprehensive planning work becomes a window into what city managers balance when staff, councils, the public, and developers all want different things at once. Broadway Avenue in San Antonio becomes a sharp case study in the tension between state road priorities and local ambitions for safer, more walkable, mixed-use corridors. The show also spends time with the less glamorous mechanics of city life. It talks about code changes, tax base, fiscal analysis, public pushback, commercial vacancies, and the long process of getting downtowns to work again. Affordable housing is treated as a community-wide question about who is missing from a neighborhood and why. Small business episodes look past emergency relief into the deeper issue of how much retail space a place can actually support. The interviews are usually practical rather than theatrical. Guests bring lived municipal experience, consulting work, advocacy, or redevelopment stories, and the host tends to connect those stories back to the cost of doing business as usual. There is an argument running through the show: cities cannot keep building patterns they cannot maintain and then act surprised when the bill arrives. But the tone is not cynical. Go Cultivate! is at its best when it shows how a code tweak, a downtown investment, a more honest budget conversation, or a better corridor decision can give local leaders room to improve things incrementally. It is a steady, policy-literate show for people who care about places enough to ask how they function after the ribbon cutting.
Made for: Go Cultivate! is for planners, city staff, elected officials, consultants, downtown advocates, and engaged residents who want practical conversations about how communities actually work. It especially fits listeners interested in growth, infrastructure, housing, and local fiscal resilience.
What sets it apart: The show connects planning ideals to municipal math. Instead of treating walkability, housing, downtowns, and small business as separate causes, it keeps asking how each choice affects a community's long-term ability to maintain itself.
In their own words
A podcast for community builders. Discussing ways to grow financially resilient, resource-conscious, and people-friendly cities.
As heard by us
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Go Cultivate! connects municipal policy to its visible consequences in streets, downtowns, local businesses, and city budgets.
Go Cultivate! traces the consequences of city decisions, from the fate of a downtown storefront to the maintenance bill attached to rapid growth.
Why you'd press play
A city's growth looks different when Kevin Shepard asks who will pay to maintain the roads.
Press play if you want
- to hear how a downtown signage program can pay for flowerpots and activities
- to think through what empty shopping centers mean for your walkable downtown
Talks about
Podcasts like Go Cultivate!
Engineering MattersReal engineering projects, explained by the people building them.
Bear BrookNHPRNHPR's Jason Moon investigates the Bear Brook barrel murders and a New Hampshire wrongful-conviction case.
Episodes
- 1
Season 3 Wrap Up — with Kevin Shepherd
Kevin Shepard, founder and CEO of Verdunity, closes Season 3 of Go Cultivate with a solo episode announcing Eric Pruitt of Denton, Texas as the survey gift card winner and a planned January 2024 return.
Aug 1, 2023·44m·2 clips - 2
Meet the Verdooners — with Matt Meals
Jul 14, 2023·16m - 3
Leadership and Inclusive Prosperity — with Dr. Kaye Monk-Morgan and Shaun Rojas
Jul 4, 2023·1h 17m - 4
Meet the Verdooners — with Maddie Bonney
Jun 27, 2023·16m - 5
Plangineer to Storyteller — with Andy Boenau
Jun 7, 2023·1h 14m - 6
Development Bills at 2023 TxLEG—with Michael Kovacs and Tom Yantis
May 11, 2023·47m - 7
Rural Community Transformation — with Julianna Dodson
May 2, 2023·1h 19m - 8
Place and Prosperity — with William Fulton
Apr 4, 2023·1h 11m - 9
Enabling Desirable Neighborhoods - with Melissa Milton-Pung
Mar 7, 2023·1h 2m - 10
Bridging Infrastructure Gaps — with Mark Funkhouser and Liz Farmer
Feb 7, 2023·1h 14m - 11
Engaging Youth in Planning — with Mara Mintzer
Jan 3, 2023·52m - 12
Meet the Verdooners — with Kevin Shepherd
Dec 22, 2022·28m - 13
Meet the Verdooners — with AJ Fawver
Host Kevin Shepard introduces a series of short interviews with team members to discuss their roles and the company's mission in community building.
Dec 20, 2022·30m - 14
Meet the Verdooners — with Tim Wright
Dec 15, 2022·16m - 15
Meet the Verdooners — with Mari Austin
Dec 13, 2022·18m - 16
Meet the Verdooners — with Karina Castillo
Dec 8, 2022·18m - 17
Meet the Verdooners — with Marshall Hines
Dec 6, 2022·19m - 18
Community Branding and Engagement — with Ryan Short
Nov 1, 2022·1h 12m - 19
Neighborhood Evolution in South Bend - with Mike Keen and Monte Anderson
Oct 4, 2022·1h 19m - 20
Navigating Different Stages of Growth - with Kent Cagle
Interview with a city manager discussing challenges and strategies for building financially resilient and people-friendly cities.
Sep 6, 2022·1h 1m - 21
The Rosetta Stone of Zoning - with Sara Bronin
Aug 2, 2022·50m - 22
Embracing Incrementalism - with Colleen Askew
Jul 6, 2022·1h 2m - 23
Resurrecting a Dying Downtown - with Jason Duff
Hidden gemJason Duff, founder of Small Nation in Bellefountain, Ohio, describes how he revitalized a downtown that had 80% first-floor vacancy over a four-to-five year period by purchasing a derelict building at a sheriff's sale and recruiting a destination restaurant through persistent outreach to pizza champion Michael, whose mentee Brittany Saxton became the owner of 600 Downtown, a five-time world pizza champion, and a White House-recognized entrepreneur.
Jun 7, 2022·1h 14m·4 clips - 24
Rethinking Budgeting – with Andrew Kleine & Shayne Kavanagh
May 3, 2022·1h 7m - 25
Demystifying Affordable Housing — with Deborah Myerson
Hosts discuss affordable housing with consultant Debra Meyerson, exploring sub-pieces of the housing puzzle and their impact on communities.
Apr 5, 2022·1h 6m - 26
The Battle Over Broadway – with Kea Wilson
GoCultivate podcast hosts Kevin Shepard and AJ Favre of Verdunity interview Kea Wilson of Streetsblog USA about two simultaneous road diet rollbacks — San Antonio's Broadway Avenue and Philadelphia's Washington Avenue — with a focus on why TxDOT reversed a 78%-approved bond project that had attracted hundreds of millions in private investment.
Mar 1, 2022·1h 14m·5 clips - 27
Vibrant Downtowns - with Catherine Sak
Feb 3, 2022·1h 11m - 28
Serving You Better: 3 Reflections from 2021 and Initiatives for 2022
Jan 11, 2022·45m - 29
Fiscally Informed Planning - with the City of Taylor, Texas
Dec 7, 2021·1h 41m - 30
"Buckle Up, Baby" – with Chuck Marohn
Nov 2, 2021·1h 26m - 31
Aligning City Budgets with Desired Outcomes – with Andrew Kleine
Dec 16, 2020·1h 11m - 32
2020 Wrapup & survey
Dec 11, 2020·7m - 33
Infrastructure funding! – with Jim Proce
Sep 30, 2020·1h 1m - 34
Are We Doing This Right? // Sidewalks Edition
Sep 23, 2020·1h 14m - 35
'Smart growth' and fiscal sustainability
Sep 16, 2020·1h 4m - 36
Reflecting on 40 years of growth in North Texas – with John Lettelleir
Hidden gemJohn Lettelier, Director of Development Services for Frisco, Texas, reflects on 40 years of urban planning experience spanning Plano's 1988-1998 boom and Frisco's growth from 10,000 to over 200,000 residents.
Sep 2, 2020·1h 2m·3 clips - 37
Building a culture of fiscal sustainability – with Noel Bernal & Helen Ramirez
Aug 26, 2020·1h 10m - 38
Are We Doing This Right? // Budgeting Edition
Aug 19, 2020·1h - 39
Safeguarding small business during the pandemic – with Kennedy Smith
Kennedy Smith, who works with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, joins Kevin Shepard to discuss her guide 'Safeguarding Small Business During the Pandemic: 26 Strategies for Local Leaders.' A National Main Street Center survey found almost two thirds of 5,800 small businesses had no online presence at the start of the pandemic, yet businesses pivoted at 'head-spinning speed.' Kennedy argues that COVID is accelerating a structural shift already underway—with half to two thirds of US shopping malls projected to permanently close by year-end and US apparel sales down 79% in April—while creating an opportunity to redirect economic development toward locally-owned, Main Street-centered models.
Aug 13, 2020·1h 9m·4 clips - 40
Connecting housing & community health – with Becky Gray
Aug 5, 2020·1h 4m - 41
A recovery toolkit for local leaders – with Rachel Quednau
Jul 29, 2020·1h 4m - 42
Are We Doing Doing This Right? // Comprehensive Plans Edition
Jul 22, 2020·1h 11m - 43
Who gets to participate? – with Shari Davis & Derrick Braziel
Jul 8, 2020·58m - 44
Are We Doing Doing This Right? // Bike Networks Edition
Jun 24, 2020·47m - 45
Advocating for Texas cities – with Bennett Sandlin
Bennett Sandlin, executive director of the Texas Municipal League (TML), joins Kevin Shepard to explain why Senate Bill 2's 3.5% property tax cap is structurally dangerous for Texas cities, which unlike cities in most states receive zero state funding.
Jun 17, 2020·53m·3 clips - 46
Building vibrant communities – with Quint Studer
Jun 10, 2020·1h 2m - 47
Emerging stronger
Jun 3, 2020·6m - 48
Talking tax bases & sustainable development – with Patrick Lawler and Chad Janicek
May 28, 2020·1h 9m - 49
From local advocate to elected official – with LeVette Fuller
May 22, 2020·1h 4m