While suburbia has long symbolized comfort, safety, and home ownership, its consequences reach far beyond picket fences and cul-de-sacs. From traffic congestion and environmental degradation to economic inequality and declining community life, our reverence for sprawl has reshaped how we live, work, and connect.

On today's show author and developer Steve Nygren about how this pattern of development took hold, who benefits when we're isolated, and what better alternatives can look like.

[6:30] Calling out the "boundaries that box us in"

[14:30] The antidote? Connect with people who have common concerns

[22:00] Common sense ways to live with community — not sprawl — in mind

[32:00] Who benefits when we're isolated, lonely, sedentary, and sad?

• We have an aligned sponsor! Head to Duckfeetusa.com and use code MAMAMINIMALIST FOR $50 off.
• Start In Your Own Backyard: Transforming Where We Live With Radical Common Sense
• Last Child in the Woods (by Richard Louv)
• The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (by Jonathan Haidt)
• Serenbe
• This show is listener-supported. Thank you for supporting!
• Join our (free!) Facebook community here.
• Find your tribe. Sustainable Minimalists are on Facebook, Instagram + Youtube @sustainableminimalists
• Say hello! MamaMinimalistBoston@gmail.com.

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Want to get off fossil fuels but don't know where to start? Thinking about ditching utilities but overwhelmed by the complexity? Many off-grid advocates attest that countercultural living saves money and infuses meaning into daily life. For my environmentalists listening, burning fewer fossil fuels also means you're living and breathing your pro-climate values.

On today's show author and off-grid enthusiast Ryan Mitchell offers his best tips for stepping back from—but not completely abandoning—society's (fossil fuel burning) systems. And because clean energy tax credits are soon expiring, today's conversation has a special focus on installing solar panels when the time is right.

Here's a preview:

[4:00] It's prudent to be intentional about how you power your life. If you aren't, others will be happy to make those decisions for you, to their benefit

[9:00] You can *incrementally* take back some of your power, so choose your own adventure!

[17:00] Self-sufficiency 101: Lean into your natural curiosities

[22:00] Thinking about solar panels? Here's what you need to know

[28:00] Going incrementally off-grid will likely save you money. It was also reduce your reliance on fossil fuels

• Clean energy tax credits are expiring at the end of 2025 (via the Internal Revenue Service)
• Living Off Grid: 50 Steps to Unplug, Become Self-Sufficient, and Build The Homestead Of Your Dreams

• This show is listener-supported. Thank you for supporting!
• Join our (free!) Facebook community here.
• Find your tribe. Sustainable Minimalists are on Facebook, Instagram + Youtube @sustainableminimalists
• Say hello! MamaMinimalistBoston@gmail.com.

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After World War II Americans became bonafide consumers. And yet conditioned consumerism sneakily hijacks our time, money, and mental bandwidth. It also harms the planet.

The system is entrenched, the marketing is omnipresent, and it's all designed to keep us buying until we die. But there IS a way out. On today's show author and former marketer Ashlee Piper pulls back the curtain on modern marketing so that we may hop off the addictive consumer hamster wheel for good.

Here's a preview:

[5:30] There's a reason why so many of us shop to soothe our discontent (We're told to!)

[8:00] Advertising + Psychology = A powerful selling combination

[22:00] When people feel lonely, inadequate, or restless they shop

[32:00] When marketing gets predatory: zip code marketing, old guard sexism, and more

[35:00] Why Ashlee has a problem with the 'underconsumption' trend, and for good reason

Resources mentioned:

• No New Things: A Radically Simple 30-Day Guide to Saving Money, the Planet, and Your Sanity (via Bookshop.org)
• Book Club (with Ashlee!) is scheduled for Monday, August 25 at 7pm EST. Email to come.
• Join us for the Instagram giveaway, which officially goes live on Wednesday, August 6

• This show is listener-supported. Thank you for supporting!
• Join our (free!) Facebook community here.
• Find your tribe. Sustainable Minimalists are on Facebook, Instagram + Youtube @sustainableminimalists
• Say hello! MamaMinimalistBoston@gmail.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.