Petaluma's current housing stock, and the housing stock in much of the country, has four major problems:

• We don't have enough of it;

• Building more housing is expensive which undermines the ability of families to build wealth and pushes the underemployed toward becoming unhoused;

• Much of our housing is configured such that infrastructure maintenance is financially unsustainable for cities;

• Much of our housing stock is gasoline, car-dependent which is harmful to the climate and limits those who aren't able to drive because of age, illness, or income.

Cars may not go away for a long time. But we must stop building cities to accommodate gasoline-powered cars and instead build them for people. This will require support of electric vehicles and a multi-faceted plan to make transit, bicycling, and walking more available, safe, and enjoyable.

Great ideas for more livable cities may come from many places, including Urban Chat, but a financially resilient city hall is required for the ideas to reach fruition. Unfortunately, the coffers of city halls everywhere have been under financial attack for the last century by a combination of land development patterns that aren't financially sustainable and taxpayer revolts.

To create the financial resiliency cities need, Urban Chat will consistently advocate for better planning and development that improves municipal finances.​

Responding to climate change effectively and with urgency is the defining challenge of our time. Two of the largest factors in climate change are our buildings and our transportation system. Urban Chat consistently advocates for urban configurations and transportation alternatives that tackle these two opportunities.​