HIBT Lab! Babcock Ranch: Syd Kitson

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 4 May 2023

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What would it take to build America’s first solar-powered town? What about a town that could withstand a direct hit from a hurricane? In the early 2000s, Syd Kitson, a former NFL football player and real estate developer, set out to do both at the same time. The result was a community in southwest Florida called Babcock Ranch.

This week on How I Built This Lab, Guy talks with Syd about how he negotiated the purchase of a 91,000 acre parcel of land, conserved 80% as a nature preserve, and developed the remainder into an innovative planned community. Plus, how advance planning enabled Babcock Ranch to survive Hurricane Ian, a Category 4 storm in 2022, with minimal damage.

This episode was produced by Chris Maccini and edited by John Isabella, with music by Ramtin Arablouei. Our audio engineer was James Willetts.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime members, you can listen to how I built this early and ad-free on Amazon Music.
0:07.0	Download the app today.
0:09.0	What if the greatest tragedy of your life was just covered up?
0:12.0	I have never seen anything like that before or after.
0:15.0	This is the story of the worst marine-on-marine friendly fire in modern history.
0:20.0	A story kept from the public.
0:22.0	It's like, what did y'all have to hide?
0:24.0	Listen to NPR's embedded podcast and its latest series, taking cover.
0:31.0	Hello and welcome to How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raaz.
0:35.0	So, extreme weather means we'll have to figure out how to build more resilient houses and towns.
0:41.0	Last year, when Hurricane Ian swept through Florida, it caused over 110 billion dollars worth of damage.
0:48.0	Ian was one of the strongest hurricanes on record.
0:52.0	And yet, one community that took a direct hit from the hurricane was largely unscathed.
0:58.0	It's called Babcock Ranch, and the 5,000 people who lived there
1:02.0	rode out the storm without ever losing electricity or even the internet.
1:07.0	And the reason Babcock Ranch did so well, well, it was designed that way.
1:12.0	The town is the brainchild of a real estate developer named Sid Kitson.
1:16.0	The story of how he built the town actually starts back in the mid 1980s
1:20.0	when he left a career as a professional football player for the Green Bay Packers.
1:25.0	It was a very different game back in those days.
1:28.0	I was a third round draft choice, and I made $40,000 my first year.
1:33.0	So, it wasn't like you were living this lavish lifestyle,
	...

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