Outdoor Recreation as an Economic Driver

Ross Berlin : It used to be, people would move to where jobs are, and now the power is in the hands of the people more often. People are going to choose where they want to live, and then they're going to make a job work, whether that's a remote job or a job that maybe is like slightly out of preferential industry, but they're fine doing because it means they get to live somewhere where they really enjoy after-work activities or weekend activities, whatever it may be. Amanda Ellis : That's the voice of Ross Berlin, Senior Consultant at Forth Economy, here today with fascinating insights on the great outdoors as an economic driver.

Whether you love to get outside yourself or prefer the great indoors, you're sure to learn something about how to maximize your area's outdoor amenities and maybe even get some ideas for your next trip. Welcome or welcome back to Inside America's Best Cities. I'm Amanda Ellis of Livability Media, your partner for telling your community's stories, attracting talent, and getting your place in front of the right people. At Livability, we highlight the nation's most vibrant small and mid-sized cities to relocating talent and business decision makers so they can glean the insights they need.

And with that, let's jump in. Welcome, Ross, to Inside America's Best Cities. Super excited to have you. Ross Berlin : Thanks for having me.

Happy to be here. Happy we made it work. Amanda Ellis : Yes, joining us of course from Fourth Economy to share about a topic that sounds like your team has really developed a lot of expertise on, which is outdoor recreation, outdoor tourism, how those things can really be a driver for local economies. Can you start off by just talking about why, why do you view this as an important topic in economic development?

Kind of how did that come about? I feel like it has been kind of a buzz in the last maybe decade or so. Ross Berlin : We would like to think so. Makes us feel nice and important.

I guess for starters, thanks so much again for having me. I'm Ross Berlin. I'm a senior consultant at Fourth Economy, live in Atlanta, big outdoor enthusiast. I'm outdoors every weekend doing some sort of recreating, which is a word you will hear me use a lot.

Maybe it's not normal English, but it's something that in our consulting firm is said very frequently in the context of outdoor recreation. Quick blurb on Fourth Economy: 15+ years in economic development consulting space. We have people all over the country. I help to manage a lot of our work in the Southeast, but also end up on a lot of our industry-specific plans.

So outdoor economy, AI, blue economy, all sorts of things. That's a bit on my background and kind of back to the question, why is this important to talk about? I think I'll start with the data and I went straight to the source, the Federal Bureau of Economic Analysis, who does, you know, every year polls on outdoor recreation data. It's called the Outdoor Recreation Satellite Account, ORSA.

So they quantify that outdoor recreation as an economy is about 2.5% of total U.S. GDP.

That's - it's not the biggest sector in the economy, but it's also incredibly significant. That's about $650 billion in annual economic impact. That's a massive figure that's widespread across the country. They also provide a really interesting bullet point, which is that in terms of state GDP, outdoor recreation goes as high as about 6.

5% of one state's GDP. That state's Hawaii. So think about it. You go to Hawaii, you go outside.

Colorado is also really high. California is really high. Utah. And it accounts for at least 1.

5% of every single state's GDP. So it's incredibly consistent, really high performing in some places. You'll notice a theme in this conversation like outdoor recreation isn't built the same everywhere. Not everywhere has the Rocky Mountains or Yellowstone or Waikiki Beach or other sorts of things like that.

A couple other just tidbits up front on why is this an important topic? You know, outdoor recreation development and building out that industry, it's very much linked to like quality of place and amenitization.. And the sort of things that our firm likes to talk about is like the modern economic development equation. It's not as much of a site selection or business attraction exercise, but at the same time, it makes your place more attractive for workers and for businesses that want to follow those workers and be where attractive pools of workers are.

That's why you see cities like Bozeman grow really fast and become, you know, really high-value real estate really quickly because they have that access and they can be a place where tech manufacturing exists. While it was formerly, you know, sort of a small post-industrial town. Amanda Ellis : Right. I love those percentages you gave.

That was really fascinating. You said 2.5% isn't that high, but it's more than I would have thought quantified that way. Ross Berlin : It's certainly more than like the profession of economic development.

Right. Yeah, exactly. It's like it isn't manufacturing, but it's also like it's a major industry and it's employing a ton of people and I think another stat that I really like, I happenstance across this last night while I was scrolling through Twitter, X, I guess they call it nowadays, that I looked at the biggest tourist attraction in each of the 50 states. It was a map and it had the attraction and over half of them are outdoor attractions.

Amanda Ellis : Yes, I think I saw that. And you're right, a lot of them were like state parks, national parks, were in the same spaces. Ross Berlin : Yeah. So like I'm in Atlanta and Georgia's largest attraction, Stone Mountain, that's an outdoor recreation asset.

Many of them are national parks. Many of them are other things that are going on outside. You know, you have a few that are mainly inside, like the Vegas Strip or the Mall of America. But, but I thought it was fascinating that like probably 60% of them were outdoor recreation spaces.

Amanda Ellis : Right. Can you talk definitions a little bit? So we talk about the words outdoor economy, the words outdoor recreation, but that terminology is more than just like trails and kayaking. You know, we're also talking about industry and jobs.

So can you talk definitions, how you think about that wording? Ross Berlin : Yeah, you've touched on a really important nomenclature thing, which we care a lot about. You know, we write reports, we're running analysis. So what we're describing matters a lot.

So I will use words like outdoor recreation economy, outdoor industry interchangeably. They're meant to describe the same thing. So like I said, the Bureau of Economic Analysis for the federal government, they have a definition that they use when they run the analysis I just told you about. That definition is bound by NAICS codes, North American Industry Classification System.

If you're an economic developer and you're listening to this and you don't know what NAICS is, look it up right now because it's going to help you, you know, make better, more informed decisions about all of your industry work in every single industry you touch. But our firm at Fourth Economy believes that the NAICS definition is good, but it is mainly touching on those sort of like this is certainly outdoor recreation industries. So kayaking, fishing, outdoor, like youth sports, for example, those are super obvious.

Any layperson sees it and it's like, yeah, that's obviously outdoor recreation, but there's much more to it. We feel like there's actually a really big percentage that is not accounted for in that definition. And a couple examples of things we like to give when we help to form these definitions with our clients who want to study their own outdoor recreation industry is, you know, gig economy guides are not included in those definitions. They're seasonal workers, but they're massive economic contributors during the summer or in the winter, depending on what the activity is.

I'd also add like outdoor gear manufacturers. So there may be people in manufacturing NAICS codes that are creating gears that are used for hiking or perhaps even clothes, and they're not going to be accounted for in that NAICS definition that the federal government provides. And it also had outfitters to that. So think about if you ever go to a mountain town or somewhere near a national park, think about how many outdoor stores there are that are just selling that sort of like the North Face backpacks and the Cotopaxi fanny packs.

And like, I don't know, I have both of them. I'm a sucker for those things. But like, those are part of the outdoor economy because they're part of the reason an economy like is so effective in a place like Jackson Hole, for example. And I can name countless of these towns that I've been to..

So we like to expand that definition a little bit when we're working with our clients specifically. We've worked recently with the state of Pennsylvania and also the state of Maine to sort of like form their own industry definitions that they can use that they feel like best fit what they have in terms of assets and industry. Amanda Ellis : Right. That's really interesting because, yeah, when you first think of the term, yeah, you think about like the latest thing that you did that was outside, right?

But how much bigger it is than that in terms of benefits. So we've kind of talked a little bit already about some of the obvious ones, you know, tourism benefits, job creation benefits. So maybe you want to speak to those a little bit more, or maybe some others, or consequences, good or maybe there's some that aren't so good that we see places embracing this more. Ross Berlin : Yeah, I personally am not a believer that there's like inherent negative consequences to investing in outdoor recreation.

There are some challenges in it. I'll start with the positive. I think talent attraction is the big one, and I think it's gonna be a theme of our talk today that like good outdoor recreation infrastructure and access to the outdoors is part of that modern equation of where people move and why. Like the, we call it, I've used that term a couple times, that modern equation.

Like we like to say internally a fourth economy, and like some of our friends in the talent attraction space would say the same thing, but like it used to be people would move to where jobs are, and now the power is in the hands of the people more often. People are gonna choose where they wanna live, and then they're gonna make a job work. There, whether that's a remote job or a job that maybe is like slightly out of preferential industry, but they're fine doing because it means they get to live somewhere where they really enjoy after-work activities or weekend activities, whatever it may be.

Like a place like Boulder, Colorado is a perfect example of that, sort of has both. That's the main piece. But also I think something we like to talk about a lot is twofold. One, outdoor recreation assets are great for health.

Probably not a common conversation in economic development spaces, but I can't even begin to get into all the data that's like things like hiking and biking and just sunshine are fantastic for your long-term health. It limits obesity and increases lifespan, leads to better heart circulation, all these things. And then another thing is that outdoor recreation, when done creatively, and I can talk about some examples of this in a minute, can be really good in terms of creating access to your economic drivers.

I'll give one example right now. I've said a couple of times, I live in Atlanta. Atlanta's biggest economic driver is a bike path. It's the BeltLine.

It's - you walk it, you bike it. By the end of its development in a few years, it's going to be 22 consecutive miles across the city. And not only is it great because like I run a few miles on it every week and I bike on it all the time, it's great because it connects me to stores, it connects me to restaurant. It connects me to flea markets, like anything I can imagine.

It connects me to other parts of the cities. It makes me a tourist and a spender within my own city, which as an economic developer, that's, you know, that's, that's money in the bank. That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to bring people to our businesses.

And in a more rural setting, you know, it can look completely differently. It can get you to the next town over via, via a 15-mile bike path, and it can connect you to the awesome brewery they have. And that's a really fun, you know, day activity in the summertime. You go bike 15 miles, you go get your beers, and you bike back.

And all that's economic impact right there. Ross Berlin : Some of the negatives, and we can talk a little more about these challenges. Outdoor recreation as a form of economic development, it can be hard to justify by ROI. I often think that like a good business attraction when the celebration is a press release, right?

The press release says it's this amount of capital investment, it's this amount of jobs. And then of course, it's your job as an economic developer to like track that and keep the company honest. But you celebrate when the press release goes out. Outdoor recreation is different.

Those figures don't exist for when you establish like a new bike lane or when you build a trail facility that connects two parts of town. It's just a little bit of a different equation. Constituents and elected officials can sometimes have trouble with that because they want to see that immediate ROI on their investment. I'd also add that like seasonality is an incredibly difficult thing with the outdoor recreation economy in terms of workers and the wages that those workers make.

That, like, you know, I've talked a lot already about like Montana and Wyoming and places like that. The activities are completely different in the summer than in the winter. There are activities in both, but those workers are going to struggle to find like full-time employment as outfitters or guides or whatever it may be. We often like to talk about like states that are four seasons for outdoor recreation.

Pennsylvania is a great example. We just worked there. So like they have a different outdoor recreation activity you can do in all four seasons. Not every state is blessed with that.

In some places like Hawaii or Florida, that's great because it means like you can be the full-time beach destination. But in some other places it can be really challenging when like the winter is no good for recreation. Or maybe it's like the end of fall period. There's 2 months where the weather's just terrible.

Amanda Ellis : So interesting. So we did a study for the state of Michigan in 2025, and it was a survey project of residents there, you know, why they like living there, and essentially a talent attraction piece promoting a lot of what people like. And one of the challenges, of course, for them as a state is they are a place that gets pretty cold, and so people have certain stereotypes about that. Um, and actually a lot of it went back to the outdoor recreation piece and residents really talking about how, like, they felt like they got to fully have all four seasons but also enjoy and have stuff to do in all of them.

And even had some specific winter examples that I was like, I'm not really a big winter person, but that sounds kind of cool. That's what I thought of while you were, while you were going through some of that. Ross Berlin : Yeah, it's a very real dynamic in terms of like economic drivers, because if you're only getting 3 good seasons, that's less economic impact than states that are getting 4. So it's, it's helpful to have hills you can ski down.

It's helpful to have paths that you can cross-country ski or snowshoe on because like those provide big coverage in the winter for states like I think about like New York or Pennsylvania or Vermont where it's like they're not the skiing capitals of the country, but they get by in the winter the same as they do in the summer. Yeah. Colorado, it's like the winter is our moneymaker. That's when, when everyone comes.

So it's different equations for different places. Amanda Ellis : Any thoughts on like the sort of competition aspect as more places are talking about like some of these same talking points and yeah, I guess the exact activities are going to be different and maybe like different people connect with different climates and different activities. And so it's - there's space for everybody to, to kind of win together, so to speak. But any thoughts on that part?

Ross Berlin : Yeah, there's kind of like a - I'll give a twofold answer. One is about tourism and one is about more the quality of place thing that exists for your residents. The tourism piece, like I kicked off saying, like not everywhere can have like the best mountains. Not everywhere can have a beach.

That's just not how geography works. Unfortunately. But you can still create intentional amenities and intentional investments that when people are in town, they do use. I already gave that Beltline example.

I'll give another example, sort of already talked about a little bit, but like I had this awesome conversation on this sort of like one-off circumstance one time with people at the Des Moines, Iowa MPO, their Metropolitan Planning Organization, and they had this big presentation about how they had built this whole regional bike system, like hundreds of miles of trails across all of Des Moines. And part of how they rationalized the investment is that it connected all these small town main streets and made it so people would visit them in a way that they never would have by car.

Like, people would never have left the urban core of Des Moines and gone to the small town 20 miles away if there weren't like bike infrastructure to do that. And it led to all this new business and new businesses being created and the revitalization of like these suburban main streets.. And obviously, that's amazing for tourism. And that connects me to my second point, which is that it becomes amazing for residents.

And it's these sort of like really intentional, multifaceted investments where like residents on a, you know, like daily, weekly, monthly basis, whatever it may be, are able to get outside and they live in now a better place in terms of being able to get outside and enjoy the outdoors, have those positive outcomes. Because because placemaking, for lack of a better way of saying it, in my opinion, both groups get to enjoy it. Amanda Ellis : Whereas there's this push and pull between like, all we care about is attracting new people.

What about the people that are already here? And it's like everybody wins. Ross Berlin : It hits both sides. And like places like Flagstaff, Arizona, or like Moab, Utah, I feel like I just keep name dropping like, like these gateway - same one.

Yes. So these gateway outdoor places, many of which I've been to and have been lucky to enjoy. Like those are pretty touristy places, right? They're touristy because they're right next to a national park or they're like world-renowned for ATVing or hiking or, you know, whatever it may be.

But also you can look at all sorts of places like I love Greenville, South Carolina, as an example, or Sioux Falls, like South Dakota, where like they aren't quite as like known for like being close to this major tourist attraction, but they've ingrained outdoor recreation into urban fabric and suburban fabric and like what it means to experience that place.. And that is interesting for tourists when they go, and it's also great for residents who live there, and it's a form of talent attraction.

Amanda Ellis : So it sort of has both. Right, right. I guess you can't always control proximity of things, right? It's been really interesting listening to you because I mentioned I'm based in Chattanooga, which has done a lot of promoting of our outdoor activities.

I don't know if you've gotten to do any. And I also formerly worked for the chamber, so it was a big, you know, thing that we were promoting and communicating about. And I know one of our big selling points was that a lot of it is very close to our downtown. So even if you work downtown, you can be hiking, you know, in 15 minutes.

So even on a workday, you can be - so, you know, and again, what we were saying, like, leaning into your strengths. Every place might not be able to have that as much, but they have something else. Ross Berlin : Yeah, I've been doing this cool project. I won't name the client for their sensitivity, but right now, like, literally the past 2 weeks, I've spent a lot of time diving deep into some of the most successful talent attraction campaigns of different cities all over the country.

So I studied about 10 or 15 of them, like, super in-depth. So I guess it was good timing for this. But I was shocked by how many include outdoor recreation directly in there alongside, you know, we have great schools, we have good social services, we have these awesome neighborhoods and restaurants and events, and then also outdoor recreation. For some, it's like the main talking selling point.

I was just looking at one, I think it was in Traverse City, Michigan. That's like number one selling point. Or like Wilmington, North Carolina. That's a number one selling point.

Jacksonville, Florida is another one I was just looking at. So hopefully folks will get a chance to see the outputs of some of that project in the next year or so coming out. But it's been very interesting of like every region has a different thing to sell, but like outdoor recreation sort of unanimously sells regardless of what you have in tourism materials and in economic development materials too, when you're like leading a site visit for a big company. Like you're probably - unless your actual recreation is truly nonexistent, which, you know, every place has at least parks or some open space or something like it's always going to be part of that conversation.

Amanda Ellis : Yeah, it's so true because livability content marketing is really the heart of what we do for communities with that top attraction slant. And you're right, every single client that's playing into it. And also from a visual standpoint, like if we're shooting photography, like it's going to be some of the most compelling visuals of a place too. Ross Berlin : Totally.

I, I, we have a favorite like economic region that's called the - their whole economic region in Pennsylvania is called the PA Wilds. Like that's how they're - that's their economic development branding. That's their obviously their outdoor rec branding. But like the whole ethos of what they do is like, we are the PA Wilds.

This is our region. It's a ton of forest and hiking and fishing and plenty of economic activity in manufacturing and other industries. Like it's a very healthy economic region. But that's like a full embrace of that.

Like we want to be known to everyone, you know, relocation candidates and businesses and our state government. Like we, we're the wilds region. I think Asheville, North Carolina, like that region is similar in North Carolina too, of like, that's what we're known for. It doesn't hinder us in terms of commercial activity.

It actually helps us. Amanda Ellis : What about preserving natural resources, especially if you're promoting them more, they're being used and enjoyed more, which is awesome, but I know just another Chattanooga example that as we've grown with more people living here and more tourists coming here, I have heard people who are a little bit more outdoorsy than I am commenting that like some of their favorite trails, stuff like that, way more people than they're used to. If you're trying to go get some peace and quiet, right?

Ross Berlin : Yeah, that this is a, uh, what we call a champagne problem in our, in our space, but it is a very real problem. Like selfishly, as someone who likes to recreate, I don't want the trail to be too crowded. I'm like, I'm like, gosh, I found the spot everyone goes to. I'm not cool enough to find, you know, the real, you know, the back roads or whatever it may be.

There's a really interesting publication on this. Anyone who's listening to this, I recommend you read it. It's called The Amenity Trap. I believe Headwaters Economics out of Bozeman published it, who's friendly with our firm.

And The Amenity Trap, the whole point is like you can be too good at outdoor recreation and the amenities that come with it because it can cause like housing shortages when housing prices skyrocket and suddenly they're only accessible to like wealthier individuals. Bozeman and Jackson Hole are perfect examples of that. Super expensive to live there and it prices out the workforce. There's also the fact of like, you're right, that overcrowded outdoor recreation can just lead people to go elsewhere.

Like a lot of the ski mountains have that. Issue, and their answer has been privatizing it and making it really expensive, which in my opinion, like, isn't super awesome. But I understand the business model of like Epic and those sorts of companies. We have a client on the East Coast that has this really interesting predicament right now.

They're along the water. They have a state park along the water. It's a massive economic driver specifically for boating because it has a boat launch. A couple hundred boats can launch every day.

The issue is that in the summer, every single Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, you can't get in after 9:30 a.m. because all those boat launch parking spots and slips are - they're packed. There's no more space for boats to go off.

And, you know, they're happy that it's that crowded in the summer. Ross Berlin : But also they're like, those people are just going to the state park above us and below us, which are not in our county. Once they can't get into ours, or maybe they're just forgoing ours altogether because they're saying it's too crowded. And they've created this system where it's like we're losing literal spending in terms of you pay an admission fee to go into that park.

And then also, you know, you buy food at the convenience store on the way in so you can have food on your boat. Maybe you get dinner afterwards. Like every day they're losing thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales during that peak period in the summer. And it's a champagne problem in the sense that like our state park is full.

Do you know how many state parks wish they could be full? But also it's a tough problem because like you can easily quantify that missed economic impact on a daily basis. And when you stretch it out over the course of the year, it's millions of dollars. So we're trying to work with them to figure out like how can you better assess those customers, those entrants into that park that aren't getting into the park and figure out like what's other things they can do in the county that are going to scratch their itches on the day that they can't get into the park.

So maybe it is more public launch boat space. Maybe it's a completely different activity. Like, we're in the process of figuring that out. It's a fun project.

I'm really enjoying it, but it's hard. It's hard to know, especially in a community where you may not have, you know, the funds or momentum to plan for that sort of thing. Amanda Ellis : Right. Or actual room.

Like, what if there isn't any more? Ross Berlin : Yeah. If there's no room, maybe that it just is what it is. These are tough conversations you sometimes have to have with, with our clients.

I don't think the client I'm talking about get to that. I do think there is opportunity and like they'll be able to work out new assets that help to capture some of that activity. But, you know, the theme of this call so far, there's only so much space. There's only - geography is what it is.

Amanda Ellis : You can't change it. Ross Berlin : Yeah, you can't change that. Yeah, you can pave bike lanes, but like you can't. And I guess in my state, Georgia, they made lakes for hydropower, you know, 80 years ago, 100 years ago.

But you can't just create lakes out of thin air for people to recreate. Paid on. Right. Right.

Amanda Ellis : It's just not how it works. Right. How do equity and inclusion fit into this discussion? It sounds like this is something you've spoken to as part of your work on this, and I'd be curious to hear more about it.

A lot of enjoying the outdoors is free a lot of the time, I think, which would seem to equalize some, but maybe it's not that simple. Ross Berlin : Yeah. I would say two of the statewide projects we've done recently and made and Pennsylvania, the clients had a really acute focus on this, which we really appreciated. Like, it's one of our firm's main values to think about maybe economic issues in equitable and inclusive ways that, for lack of a better way of saying it, our competition might not, just for whatever reason.

We really like to embody that value and we love when our clients do. It leads to really good synergy. And I think that something we've had a lot of conversations about is like at a base level, outdoor recreation is is pretty equitable because it's about the preservation of open space for use. It's like it's the whole ethos of public, of outdoor recreation in the industry is access, right?

It's like get people outdoors, create access to the outdoors. So like at face value, you're like, good, this, this is equitable, this is inclusive. But of course it's more nuanced than that. And I'll give two main thoughts.

The first is like access is incredibly different for people based on physical proximity, based on income levels. Based off what's going on in the household, because like outdoor recreation is sort of an excess activity. You do it because, you know, you have nothing better to do for the weekend. Like if you're, if you're in a lower income situation, outdoor recreation may not be at the top of the to-do list.

So it is sort of like it ends up being more of a middle to upper class activity to go hiking or to go fishing in ways that it isn't for sustenance, at least. And I think we found that like ingraining outdoor access into specifically youth experiences. So I think school field trips and summer camps is a really great way to like show kids from all demographics and all backgrounds and all income levels like, hey, this is really important. This is a space where you can feel safe and get outside and use your body, which is a perfect segue into the second thing, which is, of course, the nature of people's individual disabilities and capabilities.

Is directly tied to what they can do outside and what sort of recreation they can do. Which is why I would always say that, like, if your community is solely investing in one sort of outdoor recreation, that's inherently like a lack of equity in how you're thinking about it. It's great to invest in trails when you need more trails. It's great to invest in bike lanes when you need bike lanes.

Like, I believe in those things. But the reality is the best communities and the best regions and states are going to have diverse activities and multifaceted activities in terms of how they can be accessed. So I like to think about, you know, bike lanes or swimming pools that are handicap friendly as an example, or also other facilities that are maybe meant solely for youth or for adults in terms of the types of activities that are occurring there, like I talked about in Park City a few minutes ago.

So like that diversity of activity will lead to the best success.. And I think there's a direct argument that like the more people you get outside, the more economic impact those assets have. As economic developers, you're trying to create economic activity and impact. So it's sort of in your best interest to make sure you have different types of activities that are accessible to different types of people, cuz it's gonna lead to the highest volume of people getting outside.

Amanda Ellis : True, true, true. Well, anything else you'd like to add that we haven't covered that you feel like is important? Ross Berlin : I think we've talked about outdoor rec from a lot of angles. It's very important infrastructure.

It's key to placemaking. It's a core aspect of the domestic economy, state economies, regional, local. They're frequently used assets. And when done right, it's a fantastic thing for community morale to see people out on the bike lanes or to see people on the walking path or to look at people, you know, walking into town or using the pool.

Like, it's a really important form of sort of community fabric and health and culture. I think that Fourth Economy as a firm, we're people who like to answer complex questions and tricky questions, and it often is a tricky question to think about outdoor recreation in your community. Like, what do we want to be known for? How are we going to market ourselves externally to talent and businesses?

What are we going to do to activate the park that no one seems to want to use on a daily basis or, you know, outside of working hours? What's the economic impact of our trails or our bike lanes or our shoreline, whatever it may be like? That's going to be individual to your community. But what I would say to you, the listener, is that if you're someone who's taken in what I've had to say and been like, I want to have a conversation about what that looks like in my community or my region or my state, give me a call, let's talk, we'll come visit, we'll go outside, it'll be a good time.

We'll, we'll figure out what it looks like to right-size this for you, or at least to give you a framework for thinking about, you know, advocating for this within your own geography. So always excited about those conversations and certainly open to them. Amanda Ellis : Awesome. Well, we always close with sort of a fun, lighter question, and it is about - so you're based in Atlanta.

So, when we're visiting potentially for the first time, what is a bucket list item you would say they should be sure to do? So I guess it could be an outdoorsy thing since that's been our topic here today, but doesn't necessarily have to be. Ross Berlin : Yeah, happy to. So I would probably want to take you out walking on the east side of the Beltline.

I grew up on the east side of the Beltline. Unbelievable food and breweries and stores and just energy walking around seeing everything from, you know, like BlackRock has a corporate office there, to it's some of the coolest vintage shopping in the city, to, you know, like great food and fun, and it's always good vibes. I like to run or bike on that part of the BeltLine at least once a week, and I live about a mile from the east side and south side connector of the BeltLine. If you're in Atlanta and listening to this, you'll know what I'm talking about.

But I would definitely say like it's the most hopping part of the city. It's the most lively part of the city and like like on a beautiful spring day, like, like we're having today where it's 75 and sunny, there's no better place to, to be spending time. Amanda Ellis : I know it's such a tease for spring right now. Ross Berlin : We're having that too.

Yeah, we'll see. Amanda Ellis : We'll see if it lasts. I'm ready. Well, thank you so much, Ross.

This was one of my favorite interviews we've had in a little while, and I think everyone will get a lot out of it. Amanda Ellis : Thanks for listening to the Livability podcast, where we take you Inside America's Best Cities. At Livability, we highlight the unsung awesomeness of small and mid-sized cities across the country. We also partner with communities to reach their target companies and potential residents through digital content and print magazine programs.

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, rate, and review this show wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also learn more about us at livabilitymedia.com. Have an idea for an upcoming episode?

Email me at aellis@livability.com. Until next time, from Livability, I'm Amanda Ellis, sharing the stories of America's most promising places.