Podcasts about East Liberty

Immigration on the street in Pgh … GUEST Pastor Frank Rondon … pastor of Iglesia Sion (Zion Church), a hispanic church in Pgh since 2012 with locations in Greentree, East Liberty, and New Castle … Iglesia Sion is a church where more than 12 countries are represented, united by a heavenly culture and a desire that all may come to know, love, and serve Jesus Christ. GUEST Lee Kricher See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Immigration on the street in Pgh … GUEST Pastor Frank Rondon … pastor of Iglesia Sion (Zion Church), a hispanic church in Pgh since 2012 with locations in Greentree, East Liberty, and New Castle … Iglesia Sion is a church where more than 12 countries are represented, united by a heavenly culture and a desire that all may come to know, love, and serve Jesus Christ. GUEST Lee Kricher See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this Episode of Toni Unleashed, we talk with the NEW Healthy Pet Products owners Petagogy! Petagogy is thrilled to welcome Healthy Pet Products into its family, combining over 15 years of pet health expertise with Petagogy's dedication to natural pet foods and wellness. This acquisition strengthens a shared mission to provide top-quality products and expert guidance across Pittsburgh and beyond. Customers can now shop at five convenient locations: Cranberry Township, McCandless, McMurray, East Liberty, and Greensburg. Listen to hear how it all came about!

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, may not be the first city that comes to mind when discussing Italian immigration, but its Italian enclaves played a significant role in shaping the region. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a wave of Italians arrived in Pittsburgh, particularly from southern Italy. Economic hardship and political instability in Italy pushed many Italians to seek a better life abroad, and Pittsburgh, with its booming industrial sector, offered opportunities for work and upward mobility. Unlike some immigrants, most Italians who came to Pittsburgh had little intention of returning to Italy. They viewed Pittsburgh as a land of opportunity where they could create a better life for their families. By the late 1800s, Italian immigrants began settling in downtown Pittsburgh, but as the city expanded, they relocated to nearby neighborhoods like Bloomfield, East Liberty, and the Hill District. Forgotten Little Italys: Two Italian Immigrant Communities in Pennsylvania Some of these Italian neighborhoods, once thriving hubs of culture and commerce, have largely been forgotten. In Pennsylvania, two such neighborhoods stand out: Hays in Pittsburgh and Roseto in Northampton County. These lesser-known "Little Italys" offer fascinating glimpses into the Italian immigrant experience and have left a lasting impact on the state, even if their visibility has faded over time.

It's the Friday news roundup! Ben Roethlisberger is being talked about in connection with Donald Trump's first criminal trial, and it's not the first time the former Steelers QB has faced unsavory allegations. There's a ton of literary love coming to our city this weekend via the Pittsburgh Festival of Books, and we're recommending a few by local authors. Plus, a few last minute ideas ahead of Mother's Day. Come see us at Open Streets tomorrow on East Carson between 19th and 21st! If you show us you're a subscriber, you'll get a sticker. Plus, we'll have the mics open and we're giving away a few memberships.  We always cite our sources: Politico's tracking all of former President Donald Trump's criminal cases, including the hush money trial.  Stormy Daniels took the stand during Trump's trial this week and talked about her alleged sexual encounter with him – and how she met former Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. Roethlisberger has been accused of sexual assault twice – including an incident in Georgia where the responding police officer allegedly berated the accuser. The Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books is taking place this Saturday, May 11 at the Pittsburgh Theological Center in East Liberty.  Ever wonder why the East End is flatter than the rest of Pittsburgh? It all goes back to rivers.  One of the Heinz ketchup bottles is in hot water again. Learn more about our sponsor! It's almost time for the 25th Mattress Factory Garden Party. It's an epic annual fundraiser and costume party, and the theme this year is MAKE/BELIEVE. Get your tickets now for Friday, June 7 at mattress.org. Become a member of City Cast Pittsburgh at membership.citycast.fm. Want more Pittsburgh news? Sign up for our daily morning Hey Pittsburgh newsletter. We're also on Instagram @CityCastPgh! Interested in advertising with City Cast? Find more info here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This icky weather has us feeling like staying in, curling up with a movie, and ordering some comfort food. Today, we're revisiting one of our favorite power rankings about one of our favorite Pittsburgh foods – the classic mac and cheese. **Editor's note: This episode originally published July 6, 2023.  Here are all the macs referenced in today's convo: The Rear End GastroPub and Garage in Etna has a classic mac meal. Kelly's Bar and Lounge's mac and cheese is an East Liberty staple. Bigham Tavern in Mt. Washington has highly customizable mac and cheese. South Side's Spork Pit BBQ, formerly known as Double Wide Grill, still has great brisket mac. Smoke in Lawrenceville was an overall winner for both their classic and specialty dishes. Urban Tap's smoked gouda mac is fantastic. The food truck Blowfish BBQ has a mac and cheese entree. Crafty Jackalope has a build-your-own option. Fortuitea Cafe & Bakery has a ton of vegan mac and cheese options. Carmi Soul Food has a mac and cheese side dish. And one more- a belated plug for Dive Bar and Grille, which boasts a pulled pork mac and cheese quesadilla at its many Pgh locations. Become a member of City Cast Pittsburgh at membership.citycast.fm. Want more Pittsburgh news?  Sign up for our daily morning Hey Pittsburgh newsletter. We're on Instagram @CityCastPgh. Text or leave us a voicemail at 412-212-8893. Interested in advertising with City Cast? Find more info here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Linda Schifino's memoir, Neighborhood Girl: A Memoir of Loss, Longing, and Letting Go takes the reader back to her Italian-American roots, in the East Liberty section of Pittsburgh. On this episode of the Sunbury Press Books Show, Schifino discusses a time when neighbors looked out for each other, trust was paramount, and the values of another place and time made their home in America. Most of what Schifino recalls is no longer there, but she brings the customs, traditions and memories back to life. Recollections of her confirmation, the neighborhood grocery, and her brief career as a numbers runner(!) collide with the now. When her son asks if it's all right to bring a ham to the Christmas Eve Feast of the Seven Fishes, there is a fear of dismantling these traditions further, but also there's the letting go. Linda Schifino holds a Ph.D in Rhetoric from Duquesne University, and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Carlow University. She writes with Madwomen in the Attic, and her essays have been published in Adelaide Magazine, Avalon Literary Journal, Northern Appalachia Review, and Brevity Blog. You can find more about her at her website.

This is episode 42 of the Small Nation Podcast!This podcast is created for anyone interested in entrepreneurship, investing in real estate, and economic development. Have you ever wondered where new technologies for vehicles are tested? Transportation Research Center Inc. is North America's most advanced, independent mobility testing service provider, fulfilling the complex engineering, research, evaluation and testing needs of the world's leading transportation companies, and the headquarters are located in East Liberty, Ohio. Listen as Brett Roubinek, the president and CEO, shares how this facility is innovating the world of transportation and what economic impact it has on the local area! Guest Links: TRC TRC Facebook TRC LinkedIn Brett Roubinek LinkedIn Small Nation: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Small Nation Podcast ⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Friday Small Talk Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join the Conversation | ⁠⁠⁠⁠Making Small Successful Facebook Group⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Your Hosts: Jason Duff ⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn ⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠ Ethan DeLeon ⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠

Nearly 15 years after his last featured performance, Mark Anthony Thomas revisits his poetic past with the documentary short film “Folded Whispers” at the historic Kelly Strayhorn Theater in Pittsburgh's East Liberty neighborhood. Thomas performs 17 new original poems on issues of identity, urbanism, love, loss, race and the pandemic. The film is produced by Built Different and described as deeply personal, reflective, and "a love letter to the Kelly Strayhorn Theater," which is a home for Black and queer artists.

Y'all know how much we love documentaries. Today we're discussing the hilarious, profound, and deeply moving “Introducing Brian Broome” with producer and director Chris Ivey.The film is based on Brian Broome (duh!), Pittsburgh-based award-winning author of the memoir Punch Me Up to the Gods. It is a series of intimate conversations with other Black Pittsburgh creatives, including:Deesha Philyaw, award-winning author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies (Y'all remember Deesha when we interviewed her about her book, now being made into a series for HBO Max!)Damon Young, columnist and author of What Doesn't Kill You Makes You BlackerVanessa German, citizen artist and creator of the photo series The BlacksInterspersed among the conversations are a few fabulous dramatic/comedic reenactments. You will love them! Awesome quote: “There is no thing in the world that is more important than you living the life that you want to live.” —Brian BroomeWhile the film is ostensibly about Brian, we also get a peek at this defining moment in time as some of these creative geniuses are getting ready to leave Pittsburgh—once ranked a top “livable” city in the United States, but not for Black people. Chris Ivey—who is known for bringing a keen and unflinching eye to urban issues, such as gentrification in the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh and the Grenfell Tower fire in London—also uses this film to shine a spotlight on a city that has never supported its Black artists.While we do share spoilers in this episode, feel free to listen even before you watch the film. You'll be falling all over yourself to watch if you haven't yet!You can rent the film on Amazon or Vimeo.https://www.introducingbrianbroome.com

Our city has a complicated claim to gas station fame. Many believe the first ever drive-in gas station was on Baum Boulevard in East Liberty. There's even a state historical marker at the site…which is now a parking lot. But the truth is a little more complex. Brian Butko, Director of Publications at the Heinz History Center, joins us to explain what's fueling this local myth. Want to fill up on the full story? Check out Brian's recent blog post: “Was the World's First Gas Station in Pittsburgh? It's Complicated.” Our newsletter is fresh daily at 6 a.m. Sign up here. We're also on Twitter @citycastpgh & Instagram @CityCastPgh! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Racist myths around the difficulty of tattooing melanated skin has created a toxic culture in the industry, and there are businesses in Pittsburgh where Black people are actually denied service or discouraged from getting inked. Rita Santana, a tattoo artist and co-owner of Three Fates Tattoo Studio in East Liberty, joins us to bust those myths and talk about what local artists are doing to create safe spaces for people of color. Want to give feedback on the future of the Allegheny Riverfront Park? You can register here for a community design session happening this Wednesday, December 7th. Our newsletter is fresh daily at 6 a.m. Sign up here. We're also on Twitter @citycastpgh & Instagram @CityCastPgh! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Renowned sculptor Selma Burke arrived in Pittsburgh in the late 1960s to found the Selma Burke Art Center, an important hub for arts in East Liberty. With classes, lectures, and performances, the SBAC was an important meeting place for youth, local artists, and visiting creators. While not in Oakland, the SBAC is tied to our story through its funders, the Mellon Trust and the Carnegie Institute. This is the story of the Selma Burke Art Center.

On today's episode of The Confluence: Allegheny County will work with the Harvard Kennedy School's Government Performance Lab to implement different responses to nonviolent 911 calls; the Latino Community Center has opened a new headquarters in East Liberty; and we look at the pay raise state lawmakers are expected to receive this year, corresponding with the inflation rate. Today's guests include: Gloria Gong, executive director of the Government Performance Lab at the Harvard Kennedy School; Rosamaria Cristello, founder and executive director of Latino Community Center; and Christina Baker and Jaxon White, reporters with Lancaster Online.

This week's episode brought to you by Slice on Broadway, and Sidekick Media Services and listeners like you at www.patreon.com/awesomecast Wickett is introduced to Jeff the Roomba! Katie wants to hit up Duolingo's Duo's Taqueria in East Liberty! https://www.duostaqueria.com Amazon makes 'Mass Effect Legendary Edition' and over 30 other games free for Prime Day https://www.engadget.com/amazon-prime-gaming-mass-effect-legendary-edition-prime-day-140030625.html?fbclid=IwAR1YFlKgs3ByZT2-kMlLm08M90yWOzkg0swjBDbjOQ0M8Otn1BBOmGVS3pY Understanding the James Webb Telescope via Tik Tok. We're seeing the “beginning of the universe” https://www.facebook.com/DavidPodnar/videos/2207509009398855 https://www.tiktok.com/@filledelespace/video/7119256129179536686?t=8TuGxGHe0NC&r=1 Instagram tests a ‘Live Producer' tool that lets you go live from a desktop using streaming software https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/11/instagram-live-producer-tool-that-go-live-desktop-using-streaming-software/ Continuity camera with DESK MODE just sold me. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRj2gqdW/?k=1 Save $150 on Alexa-Enabled Amazon Echo Frames Smart Specs Save $150 on Alexa-Enabled https://www.pcmag.com/deals/amazon-echo-frames-smart-specs-deal Standard For Smartphones Elizabeth Warren Wants a Universal Charging Standard For Smartphones https://www.ign.com/articles/elizabeth-warren-wants-a-universal-charging-standard-for-smartphones?utmcampaign=trueAnthem%3A%20Trending%20Content&utmmedium=trueAnthem&utmsource=facebook&fbclid=IwAR2Ph0nYfNmqwYbAPZQS3RSrjl466Js0zvgY7fuicmYU08v4cgkhtiTY80 Twitter Google exec suggests IG and TikTok are cutting into Googles core products https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/12/google-exec-suggests-instagram-and-tiktok-are-eating-into-googles-core-products-search-and-maps/ Subscribe to the Podcast: awesomecast.fireside.fm Sorgatron Media Podcast Network Feed: sorgatronmedia.fireside.fm Join our AwesomeCast Facebook Group to see what we're sharing and to join the discussion! You can support the show at Patreon.com/awesomecast! SPECIAL THANKS to our Executive Producer Brian Crawford! Join our live show Tuesdays around 7:00 PM EST on AwesomeCast Facebook and Youtube! • • • • • business #startup #tech #videogames #socialmedia #technews #gaming #socialmediamarketing #techworld #future #programming #techno #news #techy #bhfyp #software #computer #design #science #technologynews #techie #gadget #iphone #electronics #engineering #samsung #instagood #android #apple #smartphone

This week's episode brought to you by Slice on Broadway, and Sidekick Media Services and listeners like you at www.patreon.com/awesomecast Wickett is introduced to Jeff the Roomba! Katie wants to hit up Duolingo's Duo's Taqueria in East Liberty! https://www.duostaqueria.com Amazon makes 'Mass Effect Legendary Edition' and over 30 other games free for Prime Day https://www.engadget.com/amazon-prime-gaming-mass-effect-legendary-edition-prime-day-140030625.html?fbclid=IwAR1YFlKgs3ByZT2-kMlLm08M90yWOzkg0swjBDbjOQ0M8Otn1BBOmGVS3pY Understanding the James Webb Telescope via Tik Tok. We're seeing the “beginning of the universe” https://www.facebook.com/DavidPodnar/videos/2207509009398855 https://www.tiktok.com/@filledelespace/video/7119256129179536686?t=8TuGxGHe0NC&r=1 Instagram tests a ‘Live Producer' tool that lets you go live from a desktop using streaming software https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/11/instagram-live-producer-tool-that-go-live-desktop-using-streaming-software/ Continuity camera with DESK MODE just sold me. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRj2gqdW/?k=1 Save $150 on Alexa-Enabled Amazon Echo Frames Smart Specs Save $150 on Alexa-Enabled https://www.pcmag.com/deals/amazon-echo-frames-smart-specs-deal Standard For Smartphones Elizabeth Warren Wants a Universal Charging Standard For Smartphones https://www.ign.com/articles/elizabeth-warren-wants-a-universal-charging-standard-for-smartphones?utmcampaign=trueAnthem%3A%20Trending%20Content&utmmedium=trueAnthem&utmsource=facebook&fbclid=IwAR2Ph0nYfNmqwYbAPZQS3RSrjl466Js0zvgY7fuicmYU08v4cgkhtiTY80 Twitter Google exec suggests IG and TikTok are cutting into Googles core products https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/12/google-exec-suggests-instagram-and-tiktok-are-eating-into-googles-core-products-search-and-maps/ Subscribe to the Podcast: awesomecast.fireside.fm Sorgatron Media Podcast Network Feed: sorgatronmedia.fireside.fm Join our AwesomeCast Facebook Group to see what we're sharing and to join the discussion! You can support the show at Patreon.com/awesomecast! SPECIAL THANKS to our Executive Producer Brian Crawford! Join our live show Tuesdays around 7:00 PM EST on AwesomeCast Facebook and Youtube! • • • • • business #startup #tech #videogames #socialmedia #technews #gaming #socialmediamarketing #techworld #future #programming #techno #news #techy #bhfyp #software #computer #design #science #technologynews #techie #gadget #iphone #electronics #engineering #samsung #instagood #android #apple #smartphone

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://feedssoundcloudcomuserssoundcloudusers.wordpress.com/2020/12/02/waymo-is-opening-two-new-autonomous-vehicle-rd-facilities-one-in-east-liberty-ohio-and-one-in-menlo-park-in-partnership-with-transportation-research-center-chris-davies-slashgear/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/you-betterknow4/message

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://feedssoundcloudcomuserssoundcloudusers.wordpress.com/2020/12/02/waymo-is-opening-two-new-autonomous-vehicle-rd-facilities-one-in-east-liberty-ohio-and-one-in-menlo-park-in-partnership-with-transportation-research-center-chris-davies-slashgear/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/you-betterknow4/message

SHOW TOPICSchool's Out, Camp's In with Mr. Steve FortunatoSPECIAL GUESTMr. Steve Fortunato, Seneca Valley Senior High School Applied Engineering & Technology TeacherSteve Fortunato has been a public education teacher for eight years, starting his career as a full-time construction technology teacher at Pittsburgh Public Brashear in 2013. During his time at Brashear, Mr. Fortunato was apart of a small team who launched Startable, a non-profit summer camp for underprivileged high schoolers in East Liberty. Throughout this time, he developed his skills in community development, fundraising, cultural diversity, event organization and an over-all better understanding of non-profit organizations.He accepted his position at Seneca Valley Senior High School in 2015. Although this was quite a change, he wanted the opportunity to expand his learning and passion for education. Mr. Fortunato followed that initiative by completing his master's degree in Applied Engineering & Technology with an additional STEM credit, as well as his K-12 Principal Certification in December of 2019. Throughout his time at Seneca Valley, he has created three new robotic programs, special education summer camps and solidified strong relationships with local industry and community members.IN THIS EPISODE, WE WILL REVIEWWhat Raider Robotics Camp and Raider Space Camp is at SV Who can attend, what can someone who signs up expect take place, cost, registration information, location, etc.How to continue with Raider Robotics after camp is overUSEFUL INFORMATIONhttps://www.svsd.net/Page/19662

With names like Billy Porter, Toi Derricote, Jan Beatty, and Sharon Flake, the first-ever Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books promises to have a little something for everyone. The all-day celebration is free, family-friendly, and spread across six locations in East Liberty, each paying tribute to Pittsburgh's rich literary community and love of reading. Co-chairs Marshall Cohen and Laurie Moser share with us what finally spurred them to take the plunge and create an event like the ones they've adored in other cities, plus how they chose this year's more than 40 local and nationally renowned authors – all with special ties to the Steel City. Check out the full lineup and register for author readings, signings, children's events, and Q&A sessions here. Our newsletter is fresh daily at 6 a.m. Sign up here. We're also on Twitter @citycastpgh & Instagram @CityCastPgh!

Jan Kraybill makes her Organ Artists Series debut Sunday May 15th, 3pm at East liberty Presbyterian Church. The Director of Music at East Liberty, Edward Alan Moore, joins his guest to talk with Jim Cunningham about the program. The Funeral march of a marionetts by Gounod in a transcription is part of the plan having been nominated for a Grammy Award. Jan Kraybill will utilize the special features of the instrument as she explains. She also tells us about riding her Harley Davidson, her passion for antiqueing, the arts scene in Kansas City, and the Audiorium Organ.

In this week's Friday news roundup, the team talks about the latest round of affordable housing evictions in East Liberty; what we know about the loss of outdoor climbing access in Fayette County; and when Pittsburghers should start stocking up on reusable totes for the inevitable plastic bag ban. Check out the wonderful local journalism and residents that made it possible: TribLive's Julia Felton on Pgh's new affordable housing committee: https://triblive.com/local/pittsburgh-city-council-establishes-affordable-housing-committee/ Margaret J. Krauss with 90.5 WESA is the go-to source on what's gone wrong with redevelopment in East Liberty: https://www.wesa.fm/development-transportation/2022-04-05/east-liberty-will-lose-more-affordable-housing-but-seller-aims-to-fight-long-term-displacement The state's announcement that game lands in Fayette County will be closed to climbers going forward: https://www.media.pa.gov/Pages/game-commission-details.aspx?newsid=537  Stay posted to SWPACC for the latest on how local enthusiasts hope to handle that: https://www.swpacc.org/2022/04/05/important-pa-game-commission-announces-closure-of-state-game-lands-51-and-138-to-climbing/ 90.5 WESA's Ariel Worthy on the likelihood of plastic bag bans in Pittsburgh: https://www.wesa.fm/politics-government/2022-04-06/pittsburgh-city-council-preliminarily-approves-long-delayed-ban-on-single-use-plastic-bags SpotlightPA's Colin Deppen on how the bag bans have worked across the state: https://www.spotlightpa.org/newsletters/papost/apr-5-pennsylvania-plastic-bag-bans-are-taking-root-do-they-work/ Plus a look at how New Jersey residents prepared: https://www.nj.com/business/2022/04/dont-stockpile-plastic-bags-before-bag-ban-starts-heres-how-to-use-the-ones-you-have.html Our newsletter is fresh daily at 6 a.m. Sign up here. We're also on Twitter @citycastpgh & Instagram @CityCastPgh!

Meet Ginny Nemchick. She's an operations manager at a business incubator in East Liberty. In this episode of From the Source, Ginny talks about her work in the nonprofit space and how growing up the responsible sibling ties into the work values she stands by today.    

Tressa has a wonderful chat with author, editor, book coach and leader of the Write To Heal Workshops, Amanda Filippelli. Also, more notes from our Kindness Crate and Name That Neighborhood LIVE from our Mar. 7th show. Amanda Filippelli https://amandafilippelli.com/ Have a story of generosity or kindness to share with us? 1-833-399-GOOD yinzaregood@gmail.com To request a Kindness Crate drop off at your business or school: yinzaregood@gmail.com www.yinzaregood.com

Artist Alisha Wormsley is best known in Pittsburgh for her incisive, compelling — and weirdly controversial — East Liberty billboard reminding us all that “There Are Black People in the Future.” But her latest exhibit at Concept Art Gallery in Regent Square goes way beyond the billboard that drew so much attention. Want some more Pittsburgh news? Then make sure to sign up for our morning newsletter and follow us on Instagram & Twitter at @CityCastPgh.

Cathedral Concerts return with Christmas in East Liberty, on Friday, December 17, 7:30 pm. The concert will feature The Brass Roots and conductor Daniel Curtis, the ELPC Chancel Choir and conductor Dr. Edward Alan Moore, and organist Ethan LaPlaca. Hear holiday favorites and the premiere of two newly commissioned pieces: Carol Fantasia by Mary Beth Bennett and Spiritual Suite by Marcus Grant.  Edward Alan Moore stopped by the QED Morning Show with Jim Cunningham to tell us more about the concert.  

Ordinary People. Extraordinary Conversations. If “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” and “The Parable of the Good Samaritan” collided at an intersection, then the Neighborly Love podcast would be the result. It features casual conversations over coffee in a “virtual coffee shop” that lean into the power of empathy. It’s about feeling heard, valued, and understood.Continue reading "Neighborly Love Podcast, Episode 16 – East Liberty Ministry Hub (Bryan McCabe, Bri Saleone, & Carrie Chappie)"

The Smart Mobility Corridor between Dublin and East Liberty through Marysville is open and operating.

WQED-FM is the official media sponsor for "Suite Life" - the 14th annual celebration of the namesakes of the Kelly Strayhorn Theater in East Liberty on November 27th. It's a jazz concert, panel discussion, VIP reception at Duolingo in their newly designed headquarters, and party featuring video images of Gene Kelly and Billy Strayhorn. Jim Cunningham speaks with Joseph Hall, the Executive Director of the theater and John Shannon, who curated the music for the concert and for the restaurant jazz happenings at Con Alma in Shadyside and downtown in the Cultural District.

Max Feinberg is a Roofstock Certified Agent out in Pittsburgh PA, a fellow investor and a wealth of knowledge about his local market.  In this episode, Max tells us about the homes in Pittsburgh, the vintage, neighborhoods, the rent to purchase-price ratio, common issues that come up on inspection reports, and details that only a local would know. Listen to this episode to learn if Pittsburgh is a good market for your strategy.   --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Mark: Welcome to The Remote Real Estate Investor. My name is Mark Woodling. Michael Albaum and I are joined today by Max Feinberg, who's from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So he's one of our certified agents and is going to give us a quick market breakdown and tips and tricks that we need to know about investing in Pittsburgh. So let's jump into it.   Max: Thanks for having me.   Michael: No, We're really excited to have you on So You are our certified agent out in Pittsburgh, right?   Max: That's correct. Yep. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.   Michael: And are you born? Are you a born and bred Pittsburghean? Is that is that the proper term?   Max: Pittsburgher, Yeah, I am.   Michael: Much better.   Max: We could go with Pittsburghean. I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I left when I was 18 years old. I lived in Arizona for about seven years. And I started my real estate career out there. But I'm back home in Pittsburgh and really enjoying working in real estate here.   Michael: Where in Arizona where you?   Max: I wasn in well, I went to Arizona State University. So I was in Tempe, Scottsdale Phoenix. started my career in Scottsdale. Yeah.   Michael: A lot less snow out in Tempe right?   Max: Yeah, yeah, well, weather was a little bit better. But it's not how I'll tell you that much.   Michael: Yeah I totally can appreciate that. So max curious to know, how did you go from Arizona real estate back to Pittsburgh real estate was it just, you know, the home homesickness or you knew that market better, you'd read that market better?   Max: It's a combination of a few things, those those are definitely part of it. Arizona is one of the more competitive real estate markets in the whole country. I'm not going to get the number exactly right. But I remember they had some crazy number of agents in the state of Arizona over 40,000 or something like that. And so just inherently not being from there. And not having that sphere of influence and network made it hard for someone who was just starting in the real estate industry to get you know, some traction.   When you combine that with not really knowing the area, like you just mentioned, and being a little bit homesick. All those things brought me back to Pittsburgh.   Michael: Fantastic. And I'm curious what what's been the biggest change in Pittsburgh, since you grew up there to now what have you seen?   Max: the biggest one has probably been, you know, some of the factors that are making up the economic drivers here in Pittsburgh, the increase in tech jobs, health care, education, all of those things. And then what they've done to the real estate market, some of the crazy amount of appreciation we've seen in certain areas, and now starting to spill over into these other areas. And we're seeing a lot of development. When I when I was younger, we didn't have we didn't have as much of that the Pittsburgh was still coming off that steel town reputation. And that's really changed a lot over the last 2025 years.   Michael: Interesting. So when people say when people hear the word Pittsburgh now, what should they think of?   Max: They should think of technology, healthcare education? I know it doesn't. Well, you know, you still think of the Pittsburgh Steelers, you think of steel mills and things like that. And I think there's only one steel mill left in the whole city, you know, those have been gone for a long, long time now. So you know, the main economic drivers, as I mentioned before, I've totally changed and we've become a really savvy city. That's more cutting edge.   Michael: Interesting. That's really exciting to hear.   Max: Yeah.   Michael: So as someone that's not familiar with Pittsburgh, asking for a friend, talk to me, like I'm a brand new movie, and give us kind of a high level walkthrough, if you will. Okay, if I'm looking at a Google map of Pittsburgh, how should I be thinking about some of the different sections, sub markets areas, if I'm an investor?   Max: Yeah, it's funny you say that, because I always tell clients I'm working with looking at a map of Pittsburgh is really not helpful at all. For a few reasons. One, we have over 90 different cities that comprise of a fairly small, big citiy, you know small major market. So we have a lot of small little neighborhoods, which are all really different.   And you know, outside of the city of Pittsburgh, there's another 150 or so small neighborhood. So when you combine that with really the topography of the area, looking at it to the map, as an investor really doesn't help you too much. You know,   Michael: Great to know   Max: A town that can be right next to another town on a map would be one place would be an A plus type community with great schools. And you look at a map and you say, well, these prices are lower right next door, why can't we invest in this area? Well, you know, it's across a river and there's a mountain there and you know, it looks like it's next to it on a 2d map. It's really not the case. So it's definitely be helpful to be familiar with the area. And that's where I could come in, or I've had a lot of clients come, you know, fly into Pittsburgh and drive around and really learn a lot from just doing that.   Michael: What you just said, I think is so valuable for so many investors, because I think so often, especially remote investors will take our local knowledge and apply it elsewhere. And to your point, I mean, you can't do that. You can't do that ever, and especially not in Pittsburgh. So this is great to know. Okay, so then talk to us about some of the markets, sub markets, neighborhoods that you are seeing, really right for investors, where folks are doing quite well.   Max: Yeah, you know, it's there's a few different types of investments that could work here in Pittsburgh, as I'm sure there are other areas and with there being so many different communities. I would say there's really not one answer to that, right. There's there's communities, such as Lawrenceville, or Shadyside, or East Liberty, where we've seen a lot of these companies like Google or Facebook, or Uber moved from Silicon Valley and open offices here. And so those are more appreciation plays, right? Or maybe Airbnb or a property like that works in these areas. But when we're looking at analyzing them for cap rate, or cash on cash, the prices are a little too high. So where we see a lot of success with investors in Pittsburgh is some of these areas that are a little more obscure, a little lesser known that I would call more B to C plus type areas. And we have a lot of them. There's no shortage of them. Like I said, there's, you know, 100 of them.   Michael: Okay, so awesome. And kind of digging into the numbers a little bit on those more appreciation plays. Can you give us an idea of just a ballpark idea of what a 3-2 would cost and what it would rent for versus some of those more cashflow heavy markets?   Max: Yeah, yeah, I mean, in Lawrenceville, and areas like that. Some areas that are popular with nightlife would be like the South Side Mount Washington, Lawrenceville, these types of places are three twos probably going to be the lower end would be 250, you're probably going to be in the 350 to 400 range for something that doesn't really need any work. And the rents are going to be in the mid 2000s. So on the surface, if we do, you know, napkin math, right back in the napkin math, that doesn't really meet that 1% rule that we look at, to further analyze a property. But right, you know, you are getting appreciation you are in areas where you know, it's probably a better tenant base that, you know, wants to be in those areas for the nightlife and things like that. So…   Michael: Yeah, totally random question. Where do you think the term back of the napkin came from? Is it because there's like, like food on the front of the napkin?   Max: Probably a couple guys sit in like a, you know, a pub in England or something. Maybe just doing some math on the back of a napkin? I'm not sure.   Michael: No one ever says some front of the napkin math, it's always back of the napkin.   Mark: So Max, I got a quick question. What's the sweet spot that you're finding right now between, you know, the cash flow markets and the appreciation markets? Where Where do you feel like the opportunity is that most investors are really gearing towards in it's competitive, but not overly competitive?   Max: Yeah, so for Pittsburgh, there's, there's a few different answers to that, if you're looking for single family homes in those B to C plus type areas, we're going to be looking at prices that are in the low to mid one hundreds, just because that's where the rents are going to match up, and we're going to be near that 1% rule or maybe a little over it. Now, like most cities, if you get a little further away from town, or you go to some areas that are a little less desirable, we may be able to find single family homes where the numbers look a lot better. And there's inherent risk involved with that as well, the buildings are a little rougher, you may have more tenant turnover and issues in that regard. But that's generally where we're going to be for a three bedroom, one or two bath home, duplexes and triplexes are going to be probably in the mid one hundreds to low to hundreds. At this point, which has really gone up, you know, I'm sure like a lot of other cities in the past two years, from, you know, the low to mid one hundreds to high one hundreds, each thing's probably gone up about 30,000. So, you know, probably about 10 to 15% appreciation.   But that's where we're going to see the numbers. I like to steer clients towards duplexes and triplexes if they're looking for cash flow. You know, we know that there's probably more turnover on multi units than there are single family units. But cash flows generally going to be a little bit better around here.   Michael: Max you bring up such a great point. And it's something that I talked to members in the academy all the time about, how do you have the conversation around someone who says, well, Max, here's this $120,000 house that rents for 1200 bucks, let's say, but over here, here's this $180,000 duplex that rents for two grand gross, and you have to explain to them that those tenants might be very different. We have to get beyond the gross numbers. I mean, how do you have that conversation?   Max: Right? Yeah, well, that's tenant turnover is just part of it. I mean, here in Pittsburgh, as I'm sure we'll touch on In a little bit here, some of these buildings are older, and utilities are separated. In some instances, they're not separated. In some instances, the owner may be responsible for paying water and electric, the tenant pays gas. Whereas a single family home generally the tenants responsible for paying all the utilities.   But when you dive into the numbers a little bit more, may actually make those single family homes more attractive than they first appeared. But yeah, no tenant turnovers part of it. Utilities being split as part of it, just property maintenance is part of it. I mean, you've got two kitchens, to bathrooms, if not more, probably bigger buildings. So there's a lot of factors while the cash flow may be a little bit better, your expenses maybe a little bit more as well.   Michael: That's such a good point to keep in mind. So you, you mentioned it, and I would love to come back to it. So the age of the housing stock in Pittsburgh, talk to us about what that looks like. Is it new builds? Is it 200 years old, 100 year old, you know, what, what is the age of some of these properties that are good cash flow investments look like?   Max: Yeah, we don't really have a whole lot that's over 130 years old. And most of the stuff that's going to be that age is going to be really close to the city center. So some of the neighbors like the north side, South Side, you look at the date, those were built in those were in the late 1800s. But oftentimes, that scares people without even really looking into it. I mean, these places were built to last a little bit different than they are nowadays.     And then we have new builds, I was just at a friend's house yesterday, who has a townhome that was built less than a year ago, he's already got plumbing issues. So you know, sometimes sometimes age isn't a bad thing. But there are issues that are associated with having buildings that are 100 years old or so which is where I would say a lot of these properties are going to sit about 100 years old 80 to 100.   Michael: And how do you determine or decipher? I mean, so I would give an example, I have a four Plex that was built in like 1890. But I took it down to the studs, brand new, everything brand new, you know, roof, electrical, plumbing, whatever, and so on the insurance that says your construction 2019. So how do you get how do you? How do you coach people? How do you walk people through? Yeah, I know, it says it was built in 1900. But it's been rehabbed. So for you, as the owner, it's effective your construction is 2020, or whatever.   Max: I tell people that all the time, I say, you know, if this building was built in 1880, there's very few things in this building that are still from 1880, one of them may be the foundation, which I know is a big is a big issue for a lot of people. But again, these foundations oftentimes are 18 to 24 inches thick, and they're not going anywhere. But as you touched on the plumbing, electrical roof, all this stuff's probably within 50 years old. So you know, we go in there, we do inspections, and we figure out the age of some of these mechanicals, and we're better able to figure out what we should be estimating for maintenance capex and things like that.   Michael: I love it. And so you touched on foundations, and there may be some damage to those foundations. What are some other common issues that you see in the Pittsburgh market that maybe are custom to the Pittsburgh market that might scare other investors away? Like for one we had, were chatting with an agent, they have termites everywhere, they have termites. So if you see termites is not a big deal. what's what's kind of unique to Pittsburgh?   Max: Termites is one of them, but it's not crazy. Common around here. termites are prevalent, though, but a lot of the issues that we see here that I've noticed have caused pause for some investors from out of state are related to the foundations, and then kind of our pretty awful weather. So you know, these foundations that are from 1880 1890, they didn't use basements back then the same way we do. And they design these houses, with foundations that are oftentimes fairly porous. And then when you combine that with the amount of rain that we get here, we see issues like mold, we see issues like dampness and basements. And then, you know, some settling and foundation shifting that's associated with age and moisture.   These issues are pretty common around here and definitely can be caused for large concern, but oftentimes are not. And, you know, I talked to Mark about this a few weeks ago, I work with one guy who says mold is gold, because it scares people away. But it's really easy and common. It's an easy thing to fix. And it's so common, but you know, when you deal with people from Arizona, for example, they hear the word mold and they just shut down right?   So that was those would be a couple things. A couple other common issues around here have to do with the age of buildings and cause people to hesitate or odd layouts. We have sometimes these duplexes or triplexes that were single family homes maybe 100 years ago, and they'd be repurposed over the last 100 years. They've got really bizarre layouts and they're not your traditional uptown or side by side duplex. We've got very small bedrooms that really should be closets, attics that are finished, basement bedrooms, things like that, that if you trace the lineage of a property back, you'll find that every 20 or 30 years or so something was done and changed it a little bit so those are a few of the things and that just other issues that are associated with older buildings which we kind of already touched on.   Michael: Yeah, that makes total sense.   MarkL Yeah Max I think one of the important points to the mold aspect is it's so cold up there that you know mold really thrives on heat right and that's where a lot of water just kind of you know, it turns in the mold once the heat gets to it but out there the freeze you know, really takes care of it so you're not going through these vicious mold cycles out there. It's really just maybe more seasonal if anything, right?   Max: Yeah, I would say it's not as common in the winter but these basements again, they a lot of them just let a lot of water in and if you're not running a dehumidifier or you know there's a lot of people that do external French drains and things like that there's ways to combat these once you remediate the actual mold issue.   Michael: That's great.   Mark: Mold is gold well we'll save that only for the more high level investors out there that really can coined that phrase I think that's good for anybody so it doesn't freak them out you know once they see some of those items.   Max: Right.   Michael: So max I come from a long long background in the insurance industry so I'm curious to know in Pittsburgh Do you guys have natural disasters? Do you have tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, that kind of thing?   Max: You know, it's funny you say that I it's another thing I like to talk to out of state clients about while our weather here is not notoriously great, you know, we get a lot of rain and it's fairly overcast, we actually don't have many natural disasters. We really don't have earthquakes. We have tornadoes one tornado me we every, maybe every three to five years. And you know, it touches down and it's gone. And, you know, I guess we do have some floods, because of the topography and the amount of rain. And they're, you know, you coming from insurance, I'm sure you're familiar with, we do have a lot of properties that require flood insurance. So that's something that we dive into, you know, before we commit to a property, because that can be a little pricey and can hurt hurt the numbers if that's another 1200 bucks a year or so. Right?   But the weather here, it doesn't get too hot. It's really not as cold as some places, you know, in New York, or, you know, Minnesota or Wisconsin or places like that. It's not as hot as you know, some places in the south. So it's fairly mild here, in my opinion.   Michael: You're talking to a guy from California. So the fact that snow is a part of the equation, mild is no part of that sentence.     Max: That's right. Yeah. Well, yeah, with no earthquakes here so we'll take that.   Michael: That's a big win. That's a big win. Sign me up.   Max: Right.   Michael: Okay. And so Max, I'm curious to know, or for investors to know, because I think property taxes is one of the biggest misses that investors encounter in investing remotely, they often know how, what their property taxes look like in their county or their state, but going across the country across state lines can often change things. So how do you know how people should be calculating their property taxes?   Max: Totally. That's the biggest one I've seen. Mark and I have talked about this as well. You know, a lot of times we've got buildings here that have been owned in the same family for 70-80 years. And on the surface, you look at the taxes, it's like, wow, $200,000, and it's only $950 a year in taxes. Well, that's what it is now, but it's going to change.   So that's one of the conversations I like to have with people. It varies county by county here. So Pittsburgh's in Allegheny County, and that's where most of the properties that we're going to be talking about or Roofstocks going to be publishing are going to be located in Allegheny County.   Generally, in Allegheny County, the way they reassessed these properties is approximately 80% of the new sales price. And then the millage rate in each Township, which we just discussed, there's a ton of them, varies. So I can't really give a one size fits all answer there other than you can calculate the assessed value based off your purchase price, and then go check out what the millage rate is for whatever neighborhood that property is actually in and go from there.   Once you get outside of Allegheny County, in the neighboring counties, such as Westmoreland, Butler, Beaver County, places like that, they're all calculated differently. So we could go on a one by one basis there but Allegheny County for the most part, that's how it's done.   Michael: Okay, perfect. And that's what I always share with folks too is Hey, just go call the county assessor ask how you calculate your resale property taxes. So this is super helpful. So for anybody listening, who's interested in investing in that market, go look up the millage rate for that specific area and multiply it by 80% of the purchase price.   Max: Approximately varies year over year. Sometimes it's 75. But yeah, that's a safe way of calculating it   Michael: More or less. Okay, cool. Mark, do you have some other questions for Max?   Mark: Yeah, I think it's good to know really what your expectations are because it's a two way street. You know, buyers are putting in offers on Roofstock for MLS properties, we would kick those offers over to you as a referral. And you're going to work with those buyers. But when you have that first conversation with buyers, what is it that you always emphasize or some of the common things that you say hey, before we move forward into and submit this offer. Let's make sure we have these things in a row. What What is it that you go through?   Max: Well, I'll tell you this, Roofstocks done a really good job of making sure buyers are pre qualified and ready to buy. So it's a little different for buyers I work with from Roofstock, that may be someone I've met through another means. But the biggest thing with expectations is I try to let people know that the market still pretty hot, it has slowed down a little bit, especially in the multifamily world. But if we see a property that the numbers look really, really good, a lot of other people are seeing that property, and they're running those same numbers as well. So you just got to be ready to go.   And I know a lot of people a lot of times being from out of state have a lot of questions. And some of which we've just covered, how do I calculate taxes or some of these issues? So I like to just try to have this conversation with them initially, and say, Hey, you know, here's, here's the answer to these questions. By the way, we also have a 10 to 14 day inspection period where we can make sure we're not getting into something that we shouldn't be getting into. So if a property looks really good, I just want people to understand that it's going to be gone still within 24 to 48 hours around here.   Michael: That makes total sense.   Mark: That's great. And when you submit an offer, and you hear back from let's say, a listing agent, you know, what's the typical back and forth that you have with a buyer, because I know some agents give you extra information and give you some ideas about you know, where you need to be, how do you approach that with a buyer to give them as much market Intel, just so they can really either submit that offer, say, Hey, you know what this may not be, you know, the the best offer on the table. So let's go shop for another property.   Max: A lot of times, especially with deals that are really competitive, I just tell people, even if it's not a highest and best situation, sometimes it's best to put your best foot forward and just say, Hey, this is what I'm willing to do. This is my personal, highest and best situation. And if someone else wants to do 10,000 more, or is able to offer cash, then so be it right, and this one wasn't the one that was meant to be. But that way, at least you know, you're not trying to squeeze out two or $3,000.   I try to help people understand that if you're going to look at this as a long term investment, two or $3,000 off of sales price, when you're doing a 30 year mortgage is so small, that if you think this is a property that you really want, it looks like a good deal. Let's go for it, right. And we can do our due diligence on the property and some of these other things during an inspection period, when we can still get out of it, and you can get your deposit back.   Michael: And Max to your point. I mean, even putting your best foot forward, knowing that you might still lose out on the deal allows you to potentially become that backup offer. If the first deal falls through this just happened to me…   Max: Totally,   Michael: You know, the selling agent came back and said, Oh, you know, our other buyer fell out. Are you still interested? And I see Yeah, you know, we can talk? Yeah, let's have that conversation.   Max: Yeah, we can talk about that offer. That offer might go down a little bit right?   Michael: Exactly. You gotta pay for rejecting me.   Max: That's, that's right. Yeah. But you know, that's that's happened a lot around here. And I'm glad you said that, because I think we've had a lot of appraisal issues lately. I'm not sure if this is happening in other markets. But I think appraisers, especially around here, are tasked with the difficult job of trying to cool off a hot market, right? They see these prices going up and going up. And they don't want to be the ones left holding the ball like 13 years ago, or 12 years ago. And so we've had a lot of, you know, appraisals come back low lately. And that's really open things up for what you just mentioned, hey, this person doesn't want to buy it anymore, you know, hey, is your offer still stand? So I'm glad you said that, because we've seen a lot of that here.   Michael: Interesting. And so in terms of the offer prices that you're seeing properties go under contract for, are they and keep in mind everyone listening, we're recording this end of September 2021. But are they at list price? Are they over list price? Are they under list price? Where are you seeing the off the winning offers coming coming in?   Max: With single family homes, we're still seeing them above list price pretty often. With multi families not quite as often. I feel like there's a few reasons for that, you know, obviously the first and foremost being there's less people looking to buy multifamily properties that are single family properties. But multi families are still going to be around list price. I just had a client lose out the other day we went 7000 over on $125,000 duplex, and I think the winning bid was probably about 10 or 11,000 over so that's still common.   We don't really have anything, you know, more than, you know, 10 or 20,000 over for the most part, just because you don't really go 50,000 over, you know, on a $200,000 purchase. I'm sure in places like California, you may see it more often because the initial price is higher, right? But here the percentage is, you know, never really too much more than 10% above list price.   Michael: Okay. And are you seeing people get really aggressive and creative with the terms that they're offering?   Max: Yeah, yeah, I mean a lot of people still waiting inspections and I know that's something that's hard for a lot of Roofstock clients. And I really honestly expect a lot of Roofstock clients to want to waive inspections as they've never seen the properties but sometimes you have to remember you're competing against local investors as well, who have experience and they've walked that property and they're comfortable waiving inspections, because they already know you know what's needed or what's not. So that's obviously still a big part of it.   And we're seeing, you know, lease backs to the owners, because it's hard to find properties for them to move into. So they're letting owners stay, you know, for three months for free. There's a lot of creative things going on right now.   Michael: Interesting.   Max: There's still people covering appraisal differences as well, even if you're doing a purchase with a loan, you know, you can still waive the appraisal contingency, but you're going to be responsible for covering that that gap. I've seen that more often in the last few months than I have in the past as well.   Mark: And so Max, are you when you're getting an offer submitted through Roofstock? How many times are you doing a leaseback? Like what percentage? Or what percentage? Are you waving? You know, the inspection contingencies or any of those like what's what's the common ratios that you're seeing out there?   Max: For Roofstock not as much again, the clients are usually out of state. And so they they feel more comfortable, at least having an inspection done. And so I try to help them understand other ways that we can improve the offer, you know, obviously more money is helpful, but maybe more deposit money, maybe a quicker closing, whatever it may be, there's other ways to make your offer more attractive. Maybe you just tell them, hey, I want to do an inspection. But it's going to be an as is sale, I'm either going to take it or leave it I'm not going to use this inspection to really beat you guys up and negotiate any further. I just had a Roofstck client do that this week. So leasebacks not as often. But you know, other creative strategies are pretty common.   Michael: Awesome. And, Max, when you're putting up properties onto the Roofstock select program in the Pittsburgh market, what criteria are you looking for? What is it that when you see a property screams Oh, perfect investment property candidate?   Max: Yeah, Mark and I have talked about this a lot. And I'm still trying to find, you know, what's best for the Rootstock investors? And I think the answer to that is there's investors that are looking for all different types of things. So I'm trying to get creative, and put all different types of properties on there, I've been doing a lot of properties in these Lawrenceville types areas where the initial return doesn't look great. But I found that there's Roofstock investors who are from California or Washington, and they're still looking at us. And when these are still really good numbers.   So that's I'm doing some of that a lot of the B to C plus properties where we're looking at a 1% rule. That's one of the things I'm looking for. And then I've I've been uploading some properties to Roofstock lately that are in some of the areas where the returns are going to be a little higher. And on the front end, I've really found it's important with those properties to have these conversations about potential issues. So there's there's all sorts of different criteria for what we can find in Pittsburgh.   Michael: That's great and cool to hear that Pittsburgh does really cater to to every investor type or every investor persona with the type of asset that they have that you have in the market.   Max: Absolutely.   Mark: Yeah, I have a few stats I want to throw at max and just see what he if he has any comments around these because I was just studying John Burn's real estate data, which is a great source of information. It shows that rents were up 2.7%, from 2020, basically. So over the last year, it was 2.3% in 2020, and 2019 is 3.6%. So slow and steady, I would say is always good. The existing home prices jumped. This is a median number from 173 to 192 in 2021. So over the last year is jumped up a nice percent was that clip about 20% clip, it's not too bad or 10% clip, excuse me.   Here's the number that stood out. And I would love to hear what Max has to say on this. So I'm looking at the cost of a payment and maintenance to own versus the cost of rent. And it shows that the cost of a payment with maintenance for let's call it an entry level home is $997 a month versus that same entry level home to rent is about $1416. max, are those numbers accurate? What do you see in the market?   Max: That sounds accurate to me, like I said, you know, $1400 a month in rent would be about probably $170,000. Home, depending on the area, but so that average rent sounds just like the average purchase price you just mentioned. So that sounds spot on to me. And I'm glad you brought that up the rent increase to one of the other things that we see around here a lot, which I've had conversations with a lot of Roofstock investors about is the current rents of these properties we're uploading, we have a lot of properties here that are older, have maybe been passed down through families, tired landlords, and the rents are just crazy low.   And so you know, when we initially upload properties, if there's tenants in there, the numbers may not look great on where they are now, and there's a lot of reasons for that. And the most common reason is landlords, just really not raising rents and keeping up with how fast they've appreciated, like you just mentioned, Mark, I think a lot of these older, tired, landlords don't really go and check the real estate stats like that and say, oh, holy cow, I should have raised this, you know, 10% over the last three years, because that's what it's gone up, you know, and people don't realize that, you know, they're still sitting at 650 a month for a one bedroom. And, you know, it should be at 850. Now, and that changes everything. That's really, really common around here.   Michael: Yeah, that's such a good point, Max. And I was just having a conversation with some investors yesterday talking about the difference between buying on pro forma or buying at true value. And so what we're talking about is because of single family is a little bit different than multifamily. But for single families, if the potential is truly there, I think it can totally make sense. But you just want to avoid is a seller saying, Oh, well, the market rents 850, my current rents at 650. But you have to pay the price to buy the home at 850. And really, the market is 700. That's where you get yourself into big trouble. Max: Max: Right? Right. It's like, well, you should have gone and done it then. Right?   Michael: Yeah, why don't you do it? And then I'll pay for it. Right?   Max: Why don't you do it then and keep the house. But you know, what I'm seeing a lot of times is that, in this market, we're kind of purchasing in the middle of the pro forma and true value. You know, people are pricing them at the true value, and the performance, you know, 20,000 below that, or 30,000. Below that. And oftentimes where we're settling is somewhere in the middle. So yeah, I'm glad you said that.   Michael: Okay, that's that's super good to know, as well. And what tools would you recommend investors utilize to get a handle on what are the true market rents?   Max: Well, I this is a conversation I have all the time, I wish there was some sort of rental appraisal software where there was an actual correct answer for that. But really, you know, we have this conversation a lot, there is no such thing as a rent appraisal, right? It is, whatever someone's willing to pay. The tools I use are probably the ones that a lot of other people use. I use Zillow rentals a lot. I use Rentometer a lot. I use Craigslist, I look what's out there, I just try to look at everything that's, you know, really available. And then oftentimes, if it's still available, I'll take 10 or 15% off of what that is, and say that's probably about where we should be otherwise, again, it would be rented at that price. Right?   Michael: Right.   Max: Yeah, it wouldn't be available still, if it was if it was priced correctly, but we use rent ometer I use rent ometer a lot. Zillow rentals a lot.   Michael: Yeah, those are those are both great tools.   Mark: So I have two more quick stats. One of them's vacancy. So we're showing the vacancy rate is actually like 5% going all the way back to 2016. So 95% occupancy, as you guys would say, Do you find that that's true? Or you know, it sounds like it's a very competitive rental market out there. Is that right?   Max: It is a competitive rental market. I've I always go back to two things when I think about how competitive the rental market is and how people don't really realize how competitive it is I purchased a building in December of last year, so it's been about you know, 9-10 months, and the owner was living in the downstairs unit which was a really nice unit and they told me it's probably worth 750-$850 a month. Well I went on Facebook marketplace, listed it for 1100 a month I got all these comments You're crazy. You're crazy second day rented so it is competitive. You know people don't realize what true rents really should be and how many people are actually looking for a nice property if you've got a nice clean property people are willing to pay because there's not a lot of those available.   Michael: Awesome Wow.   Mark: Well the backup statistic to that is 53% of the housing units are tenant occupied. So renters are occupying 53% of the property so that shows you homeownership rate out there is just not as strong and that's in the city as Pittsburgh so that's where the competitive nature is coming from versus ownership rate is 64% nationally right so you flip those numbers around and you see that there's that many more renters than in Pittsburgh.   Max: Yeah you know what it's really I've heard that stat and it's really amazing to think about when you think about the cost of you know purchasing a property here it's it's amazing that it's not flipped around and you can buy a nice house for $170,000.10 minutes away from the city but rental rates are really high here and I'm not really sure why I think maybe it's because we have a lot of out of state investors and you know, I'm not really sure beyond that, but the opportunity is there there's a large rental pool and not a lot of vacant properties as you just mentioned.   Michael: Interesting.   Mark: That's great Well to me that that's what sums it up right there is that it's there's the the slow steady your rental growth, there's a tenant occupancy, there's a there's a demand for tenants that are coming from both your side as well as they're looking for properties. So it sounds like the supply and demand is very healthy on the renter side which is the I really drive investors to the market.   Max: Yeah, and rising rents and rising ARVs as well so it's a good time to get in.   Mark: Max this was great. This is the the comments on just you know what, what the common things are that you're seeing out there. I mean, this is the information that you probably have the conversations every day, maybe 5-10 times a day so glad we could get that out there and share it with a listener. So Michael, this was us, he was probably one of the better interviews I would have to say because it's, it's a demystifying right, all the all the little things that people hear about, but you really need to hear it from the locals.   Michael: And I can say wholeheartedly, Max that   Max: I'm gonna have to go back and watch the other interviews how to make sure. Thanks, guys, I appreciate it.   Michael: This was great.   Mark: Thank you so much.   Alright, thanks again, Max, for joining us. And thanks to all the investors for listening and we'll catch you on the next one. Happy investing.

Digital Dream Labs links hands-on learning with digital games to teach children how to think. The TechVibe Neighborhood Tour stopped by Digital Dream Labs' new offices in East Liberty to talk with CEO Jacob Hanchar and CTO Grant Olson to learn more about the company, its products and future. Digital Dream Labs is the leading provider of hands-on educational technology for children ages 4 to 9. The company's products satisfy the need for engaging, language- and system-agnostic designs that allow pre-readers to interface with both on-screen environments and other devices such as educational robots, smart speakers and other smart devices.

Today on the Fast Lane pres Autos By Nelson: - Ed and Trey Lyle give their votes of confidence for NASCAR at Indy Road Course - Bruce Marshall (The Gold Sheet) on the Hokies, Hoos, Flames, and WFT - Bobby Boudreaux from Poplar Grove Golf Club in studio

Welcome to Episode 119 of the Tailgate Guys BBQ Show Podcast where we find out about the rising cost of meat and the outlook for the rest of the summer from one of the industry's experts. Kevin Green of The Butcher Shoppe breaks it all down for us and what it means to both backyard cooks and competition pitmasters in the near and short term. We also welcome Jeff Scheurer and Luke Legatt, pitmasters of the KCBS competition team Tire Smoke BBQ out of East Liberty, Ohio. Jeff and Luke are engineers for Honda R&D and they discuss how that analytical background helps them in competition Q. After several near-misses, Tire Smoke BBQ captured its first Grand Championship over the weekend on Day One at the 51-team Hoosier BBQ Classic in Franklin, Indiana. Meanwhile, co-hosts Lyndal and Steve review their Father's Day cooking exploits, opine on early episodes of the Food Network Show BBQ Brawl and take a rapid-fire look at the sports world. Thanks to our sponsor/marketing partners who make our show possible: Blues Hog BBQ Sauce, Royal Oak Charcoal, The Butcher Shoppe, Iowa BBQ Store, Affordable Income Tax & Payroll, DDR Fabrication, Arkassippi Smoke Live and The Arkassippi Combo, Vietti Marketing, In the Garden of Eden and The BBQ League. Special thanks to Marty “Sign Man” Prather and Domino's Pizza, an “Official American Royal World Series of BBQ” sponsor of our team. Have a great BBQ Week! #SmokeEmIfYouGotEm

Community leader from East Liberty announces candidacy for mayor of the city of Pittsburgh, energy industry takes another hit in Allegheny County and more.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pittsburgh's contributions to the uniquely American art form of jazz are essential to its national narrative. Fleeing the Jim Crow South in the twentieth century, African American migration to the industrial North brought musical roots that would lay the foundation for jazz culture in the Steel City. As migrant workers entered the factories of Pittsburgh, juke joints and nightclubs opened in the segregated neighborhoods of the Hill District, Northside and East Liberty. The scene fostered numerous legends, including Art Blakey, Billy Strayhorn, George Benson, Erroll Garner and Earl “Fatha” Hines. The music is sustained today in the practice rooms of the city's universities and by groups such as the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild and the African American Music Institute. Authors Richard Gazarik and Karen Anthony Cole chart the swinging history of jazz in Pittsburgh. Karen Anthony Cole is a lifetime musician and music educator in Western Pennsylvania. She is a retired high school band director, having taught and mentored students in marching, symphonic and jazz band and jazz history electives. Richard Gazarik is journalist and author. He has won awards for his writing and investigative reporting into public and corporate corruption in Pennsylvania. Description courtesy of the History Press.

Welcome back to another great episode of Pizza Talk With Me! It's been a while since we recorded so there was a huge back log of news and updates to provide. We talk about:How Pittsburgh is secretly a world-class pizza incubator. This extensive Food and Wine article that covers the best pizza in every state. There is a mini review of Black Lotus Pizza in Lawrenceville. The star of the show is Wood Fired, a new pizza shop in the old Pizza Taglio location run by the folks behind Lorelei.

We welcome Chris Frye, Mayor of New Castle, PA, to Business as Usual to discuss how COVID-19 has impacted small towns like his across the country. Chris has an amazing background of community engagement. He recently left Lawrence County Social Services Inc., where he managed four self-sufficiency grant programs. He serves on the New Castle YMCA Board of Directors and is a graduate of the Lawrence County Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Lawrence County Program. Chris has a Masters’ degree in Social Work with a concentration in Community Organizing and Social Administration from the University of Pittsburgh. During his tenure in Pittsburgh, Chris immersed himself in opportunities to study organizational and neighborhood development. He conducted walk-about studies in East Liberty and Larimer neighborhoods. Join us for what promises to be an engaging and educational conversation.

Well we had to get to Spirit eventually and why not celebrate our fifth episode in style? In this episode we gobble down the infamous Butt Patrol pizza from Spirit as well as a sheet of their fabulous grandma pie. Crunch Meets Munch as Christa waxes poetic about their simple, yet sufficient, Caesar Salad. We also discuss a variety of other incredible pieces of pizza news and topics.Only 21 more weeks until our live show at Spirit!We also talk a lot about Frasier and this video of Kelsey Grammer at the Just for Laughs festival. Pizza News:NY Times article about pizza shops adapting to the pandemic. Lorelei in East Liberty has opened a pizza shop called Wood Fired! They are doing pop-up type stuff, so stay tuned. They are cooking out of the old Pizza Taglio place.Pessario's on Butler St had a fire issue! They hope to have renovations staring soon.Questions from The Grease BagWhat do we think of rainbow pizza?Should we put French fries on pizza like Primanti Sandwiches?Stuffed crust pizza, yay or nay?

As most of us work from home wearing our more casual attire, the need to get our formal business duds dry cleaned on a regular basis has all but disappeared.   To detail another impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our economy, we welcome Justin Strong, Chief Executive Manager of 7th Movement Development LLC, to detail how the dry cleaning industry is coping and innovating to keep their doors open.   You may also know Justin for his creative efforts with the former Shadow Lounge in East Liberty. Justin will also detail his work as a creative consultant in the Pittsburgh region. Join us for what will be an informative and lively conversation.

Samuel Hazo is a lifelong Pittsburgher, a finalist for the National Book Award, and Pennsylvania’s first Poet Laureate. In this episode, Samuel describes his earliest memories of Pittsburgh, what it was like growing up in Squirrel Hill and East Liberty (where he was a Cub Scout), and attending Notre Dame in the 1940s. He also shares his memories of running the International Poetry Forum and tells Elise about the people he brought to Pittsburgh for poetry readings, including Grace Kelly and Gregory Peck.   His introduction to “cosmopolitan Catholicism”   Poetry as a part of public life   His time in the marines   The importance of memory   His work at the International Poetry Forum   His memories of Grace Kelly   Love and risk   How to bring poetry to the public   Samuel Hazo’s website Piers Plowman The Divine Comedy Chaucer Christopher Dawson Francois Mauriac “The Poem” by W.S. Merwin “One-Liners or Less” by Samuel Hazo International Poetry Forum W.H. Auden Anne Sexton Gwendolyn Brooks Seamus Heaney Billy Collins Octavio Paz Naomi Shihab Nye W.S. Merwin Joyce Carol Oates Derek Walcott Eugene McCarthy Grace Kelly (Princess Grace of Monaco) Richard Pasco Archibald MacLeish John Donne Gregory Peck William Butler Yeats Sally Wiggin

A lone Pittsburgh Tribune-Review vending machine, on the corner of Broad Street and Highland Avenue in East Liberty, is one of the few remnants of Pittsburgh's once-thriving print newspaper industry. “We're trying to get them all picked up but there may be a few out there we'll have to get later,” said Alan Bowlby, distribution manager for Trib Total Media. Last November, the newspaper ceased production of its Pittsburgh print edition . And now the vending machines that once dotted the city Are you the producer of this podcast? If yes, you can add the transcript here. Learn more Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from 90.5 WESA, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc. Thank you for helping to keep the podcast database up to date.

The Slaw is currently recording fresh interviews. In the meantime, please enjoy this interview from the archives with restaurateur Ben Wong of Banh Mi & Ti in Lawrenceville and Two Sisters in East Liberty. While the interview first aired approximately a year ago, we think it is as important as ever to support local restaurants right now. Press play for some cozy food content. Plus, what's one thing you shouldn't miss this week? It's actually two things: Piper's Pub now has online ordering. And for those of you looking to plan your MLK Day, check out Repair The World's schedule of events and service opportunities.

Today's chapter focuses on East Liberty Kutz, a barbershop in Pittsburgh. In this episode, I talk a bit about gentrification as I am continuously trying to navigate my own thoughts about it. Take some time today to listen to this reflection on chapter 14 of Damon Young's memoir in essays, What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker. You can purchase the book here: https://www.damonjyoung.com/book --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/its-asia-bro/support

Language learning app startup Duolingo made headlines last week when it unveiled a new public mural and $150,000 in grants focused on “creating public artwork in Pittsburgh and supporting local artists and arts organizations.”  Today, we welcome John Tronsor, Facilities Manager at Duolingo, to give us more insight on the "To Be Human" mural and Duolingo's commitment to art in Pittsburgh. Detroit-based artist Ann Lewis created the mural with students at the Barack Obama Academy of International Studies in East Liberty. A press release said the “mural’s colors and message are inspired by the student body’s ethos, creative collage making, and discussions centered on their perspective of community.”

Here is the Executive Director of the Kelly Strayhorn Theater Joseph Hall describing their Suite Life Celebration of the Billy Strayhorn namesakes Gene Kelly and Billy Strayhorn. The event is November 28th at 7pm at the Theater in East Liberty. David Hajdu, Strayhorn's biographer, Patricia Ward Kelly, wife of Gene Kelly, Lynn Hayes Freeland, Poogie Bell and many others are taking place in the event which benefits the theater.

The 2020 Impact Award is a special honor for this year only, to showcase an organization who has made a significant impact in their community through direct COVID-19 relief efforts or working to address ongoing issues of injustice and racism against the Black community. Founded in 2015, the EAT Initiative was birthed out of Chef Claudy Pierre’s vision to help feed and sustain food insecure communities. Since then, EAT’s primary focus has been to inject cultural competency and food education into communities in Pittsburgh and around the world. Upon immediately learning about the shutdown, and before most larger organizations had an organized plan, Chef Claudy and his team launched into go mode and cooked and provided 15,000 meals to residents in the Northside, Hill District, East Liberty, Southside, and beyond in the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. This effort is still active to this day and his team is still preparing meals for hungry families. Chef has produced around 50,000 meals since March 2020 and is working with multiple community partners and elected officials to cement these efforts and transform this project into a long term solution. In addition, Chef was awarded a USDA federal grant that will allow him to donate nearly 300 boxes of fresh produce to local families on a weekly basis for the next two years. Lastly, he has launched a cooking channel to educate families on how to cook the fruits and vegetables that come in the boxes.

On this episode we are trying salsa and guacamole with chips. Today, we have two great competitors, Patron Mexican Grill and Mad Mex. They are two great Mexican resturants and two great places for a good salsa and guacamole. They are both located in East Liberty and are about 100 yards from each other. We love both of them, but only one can come out on top. Who will it be? Listen now to find out!

On this episode we are trying chicken sandwiches. We have Bird on the Run vs Chikn. Bird on The Run is located in East Liberty and Chikn is in Oakland. We get a mild spice on each. These are 2 amazing sandwiches and they both gave each other a run for our money. Check it out to see what we think and who has the better chicken sandwich!

Today we celebrate the decoupage botanical artist that left her mark on botanical history. We'll also learn about a Louisiana botanist, naturalist and author who lived in a home called Briarwood. We salute the English poet who was killed in WWI - he appreciated the pure beauty of flowers. We also recognize one of Canada's leading botanists - he was 90 years old when he died on this day 100 years ago. We honor July with a beautiful poem called Keeping July. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book that inspired kids to cook with their garden harvest, and it's part of the best-selling American Girl cooking series. And then we'll wrap things up with the Landscape Architect who fought to have a tree instead of a parking meter in front of his office building. But first, let's catch up on some Greetings from Gardeners around the world and today's curated news.   Subscribe Apple|Google|Spotify|Stitcher|iHeart   Gardener Greetings To participate in the Gardener Greetings segment, send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org And, to listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to play The Daily Gardener Podcast. It's that easy.   Curated News Ann-Marie Powell talks lockdown and sharing her garden. "No one is more surprised at the success of her lockdown project than Ann-Marie Powell. The popularity of her daily Instagram Live posts from her garden is, she says, simply astonishing. Begun on day one of lockdown and broadcast every day since, the My Real Garden account now has more than 9,500 followers, making it more successful than her official design Instagram feed. In fact, it's become such a part of her life she's planning to keep it going even as lockdown eases. Ann-Marie has turned a corner of her garden into a studio. The award-winning designer and RHS judge started the My Real Garden feed after being inundated with requests for gardening advice from friends as Britain went into lockdown. Someone suggested she put the advice online and base it on her own Hampshire garden, which had been sadly neglected while her house was done up. 'My garden was literally full of weeds because it had not been looked after for two years. I like to be doing so I thought it'll motivate me, it'll be like a bit of a diary and if I put it out there that I've got to do it. I didn't realize that so many people would be interested!'  Broadcast live every lunchtime, My Real Garden followed Ann-Marie, who trained at Capel Manor, as she shaped her lawn, planted fruit and chose plants for shady spots. There's been advice on watering and deadheading to keep summer displays going."  My Real Garden reaches its 100th consecutive broadcast today, July 1, and will now become a twice-weekly rather than daily event with the Sunday Social at 12.30 BST and the new Wine and Water Wednesday at 7 pm when followers will join Ann-Marie to water their gardens with wine in hand. 'My Real Garden' will continue twice a week on Instagram Live Although she's done television in the past, it's the freedom of the Instagram Live that Ann-Marie has loved: 'It's been really lovely just being in charge of what I say. I can be as silly as I want, have a bit of a laugh, and God knows, haven't we needed to have a laugh.'  And she’s made virtual friends from as far away as Canada, Belgium and Detroit. 'It's just been amazing to just have this nurturing, lively, thriving community of like-minded people.'  You can follow My Real Garden on Instagram at @myrealgarden, and there's more information on the website."    What's the Difference Between Oregano and Marjoram? If you've grown both, you know they look quite similar, and they are often confused for one another. But, when it comes to flavor and taste, it is easy to tell them apart. Oregano tends to be earthy, pungent, and spicy. It can easily overpower the other flavors in a dish. To subdue the pungency, cooks recommend using the dried form of oregano. On the other hand, marjoram is milder. Use that alliteration to help you remember, Mild Marjoram. Marjoram's flavor is more refined; it's floral and woodsy. Because marjoram is sweeter and milder, chefs recommend using fresh marjoram instead of dried marjoram for cooking.   Alright, that's it for today's gardening news. Now, if you'd like to check out my curated news articles and blog posts for yourself, you're in luck, because I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. There's no need to take notes or search for links - the next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group.   Important Events 1744 On this day, the botanical tissue paper decoupage artist Mary Delaney wrote to her sister about her garden. Mary Delaney had an extraordinary life. Her family had forced her to marry a sixty-year-old man when she was 17. He was an alcoholic. To make matters worse, when he died, he forgot to include her in his will. Despite her lack of inheritance, Mary realized that, as a widow, she had much more freedom than she had as a single young lady. In society, she could do as she pleased. Fate brought fortune for Mary when love came knocking on her door in June 1743. Mary met an Irish doctor named Patrick Delaney. He was also a pastor. Although her family wasn't thrilled with the idea of a second marriage to the son of a servant, Mary did it anyway. She and Patrick moved to his home in Dublin, and his garden was a thing of beauty, which leads us to the letter Mary wrote to her sister on this day in 1744. Mary wrote: "[The] fields are planted in a wild way, forest trees and … bushes that look so natural... you would not imagine it a work of art ... [There is] a very good kitchen garden and two fruit gardens which ... will afford us a sufficient quantity of everything we can want. There are several prettinesses I can't explain to you — little wild walks, private seats, and lovely prospects. One seat I am particularly fond of [is] in a nut grove, and [there is] a seat in a rock … [that] is placed at the end of a cunning wild path. The brook ... entertains you with a purling rill."    Mary and Patrick were happily married for twenty-five years. When Patrick died, Mary was widowed again; this time at the age of 68. But Mary's life was not over. She hit it off with Margaret Bentinck. Bentinck was the Duchess of Portland, and together they pursued botanical activities. They loved to go out into the fields and collect specimens. It was thanks to the Duchess that Mary got to know Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander. When Mary was in her early 70s, she took up decoupage - which was all the rage at the time - and she created marvelous depictions of flowers. Today, historians believe Mary probably dissected plants to create her art. Botanists from all over Europe would send her specimens. King George the Third and Queen Charlotte were her patrons. They ordered any curious or beautiful plant to be sent to Mary when in blossom so she could use them to create her art. Her paper mosaics, as Mary called them, were made out of tissue paper. Mary created almost 1000 pieces of art between the ages of 71 and 88. If you ever see any of her most spectacular decoupage pieces, you'll be blown away at the thought of them being made from tiny pieces of tissue paper by Mary Delaney in the twilight of her life in the late 1700s.   1888 It's the birthday of the naturalist, botanist, ornithologist, prizewinning horticulturist, painter, archaeologist, historian, author of six books, and a proud daughter of the great state of Louisiana: Caroline Dormon. Her friends called her "Carrie." Carrie was a tiny woman; she was also a powerhouse, forming her own opinions and ideas about the natural world. A traditionalist, Carrie always wore dresses - she thought pants were quite scandalous. Carrie was born at her family's summer home called Briarwood. It would become her forever home and a national treasure. In the 1920s, Carrie built a writing cabin at Briarwood she called Three Pines because of the trio of tall pines around it. Carrie told her friends it was a place for daydreams. By the 1950s, a second cabin was built at Briarwood. Carrie liked to take the screens off the windows every spring so wrens could build nests inside. At Briarwood, Carrie installed trails through the woods, and she planted hundreds of plants. She even installed a reflecting pool for "Grandpappy" - her name for her favorite tree on the property. Grandpappy is estimated to be over 300 years old; he's a longleaf pine, and he's still alive today. And, I thought you would enjoy a story about Grandpappy that Carrie used to share with visitors: Once a forester wanted to "core" Grandpappy to determine a more exact age for the tree. Carrie stopped him and said, "It's none of your business how old Grandpappy is, or how old I am for that matter." And that's quintessentially Carrie Dorman, aka the Queen of the Forest Kingdom.   1889 Today is the birthday of the WWI English poet Leslie Coulson who was killed in action at the Battle of Le Transloy, in France. Coulson wrote: The gold stalks hide  Bodies of men who died  Charging at dawn through the dew to be killed or to kill.  I thank the gods that the flowers are beautiful still.   1920 Today is the 100th anniversary of the death of one of Canada's leading botanists John Macoun. He was 90 years old when he died. Here's a little story John shared about growing up in Ireland: "We had a garden well fenced in. [My mom] encouraged us to spend our idle time in it...I seemed to prefer taking an old knife and going out to the fields and digging up flowers and bringing them in and making a flower garden of my own. I only remember primroses and the wild hyacinth. Another characteristic was the power of seeing. I could find more strawberries and more birds' nests ... than any other boy."  After arriving in Canada, John had started out as a farmer. In 1856, he became a school teacher, partly to nourish his nearly "obsessive" interest in botany, but also to find a more balanced life. John wrote that before teaching, "I had never had more than one holiday in the year, and that was Christmas Day. [My brother,] Frederick, and I might take a day's fishing in the summer, but an eight-mile walk and scrambling along the river was not very restful."  Within five years, John had begun regular correspondence with prominent botanists like Asa Gray and Sir William Hooker. In John's autobiography, there are many touching passages about his love of botany. Here's a little glimpse into how he cultivated his understanding of plants: "I would take a common species of roadside or garden plant of which I knew the name and then immediately endeavor to work out its correct name from the classification. The Mullein was the species that I took first. I found it more difficult than I had thought on account of its long and short stamens, but I soon came to understand the arrangement of the stamens and pistils so well that most plants could be classified by their form alone."  Once, John was approached by his future father-in-law, Simon Terrill, who was a bit skeptical of John's prospects. John wrote, "Simon Terrill, who was a well-known Quaker in that district, ... found me with a plant in my hand and said: 'John, what dost thee ever expect to make out of the study of botany?' told him that I did not know but that it gave me a great deal of pleasure."    Unearthed Words Dens of chairs and blankets, a circus show at home,  lines and nets and rackets,  no-one keeping score. Eight books each to represent,  a fox in socks surveys,  on July first the power went and the movie was delayed. Calves the very height of style in all their sepia glory, starlings at the seaside taking inventory. Lettuce growing rivalry in green and purple lines, questions answered silently, learning to tell time. Rapunzel can no longer hide, rooster calling on repeat, Gorse clicks and crackles from all sides, a nineties dance floor beat. Chippings, pavers, rollers, our road consolidated, filling tearing, smokers keep children fascinated. A linnet pair on seedy heads, thrushes gobbling berries, an old pink paper license, explaining pounds and pennies. Old heads of lavender on thin but sturdy stalks we edge through the calendar these days not to recall. — Joanna O'Sullivan, Irish writer and poet, Keeping July   Grow That Garden Library Garden to Table by the Williams Sonoma Test Kitchen This book came out in 2018. It is part of the best-selling American Girl cooking series, and the subtitle is Fresh Recipes to Cook & Share. This book features recipes from six categories of garden harvests: veggies, herbs, berries, fruits, root vegetables and gourds, and citrus. The book is 144 pages of over 50 Recipes for kid-friendly dishes highlighting seasonal ingredients from the garden. You can get a copy of Garden to Table by the Williams Sonoma Test Kitchen and support the show, using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $9.   Today's Botanic Spark 1933 Today is the birthday of Landscape Architect Robert Fenton who was born in 1933. Robert was a Harvard grad, and he settled down in Pennsylvania. While researching Robert, it was impossible to avoid all the newspaper articles that covered a disagreement Robert had with the city of Pittsburgh. In 1965, Robert was a young, 32-year-old Landscape Architect with an office at 6010 Centre Avenue. Newspaper accounts said he had wanted to "spruce up what he called a drab neighborhood in the East Liberty section." After trying for weeks to get permission to plant a tree in front of his building from the City Forester Earl Blankenship, Robert decided it was better to ask forgiveness, and went ahead with the planting. Robert told reporters that planting the tree was in line with President Johnson's thinking on beautification and that, "If you try to get anything done through the city, you get, "no, no, no." So we decided to break up the sidewalk and put it in... hoping no one would notice. Unfortunately, the installation accidentally took out a parking meter." Newspaper accounts shared that, "In the dead of night, Fenton brought in a high lift, a 15-ton truck, and five men. The tree he had selected was a beauteous 25-foot ash with a five-inch base and it cost Fenton $110 (in 1965). The total project cost Fenton $275." The city departments took umbrage at Robert's actions. After two weeks of discussions, the City Attorney David Stahl said the tree was cut down and hauled away by City Forester Earl Blankenship in the middle of the night. Robert came to work and was shocked to discover the tree gone, cut down to the ground. Just days earlier, Robert had told town reporters that, "I think it's going to be so difficult to remove the tree that the city will let it stay and merely warn me not to let it happen again." Newspaper accounts of this story were super punny: Tree Goes, City Barks Citizen on a Limb Poetic Tale of a Tree Somehow Lacks Meter A Tree Grew In...Violation 'Woodman Spare That Tree' Cry of Architect Falls on Deaf Ears City Thinks Meter Lovelier Than Tree Want Meter There and No Shady Deal Today, if you look at the same spot on Google Earth, whaddya know? There's a tree growing in front of the building... but there's no parking meter.

Pittsburgh Police Union President Bob Swartzwelder joined Marty to talk about the protests in East Liberty last night.

The U.S. Postal Service is in danger of bankruptcy at a time when their service is considered 'essential.' While postal workers are delivering important items, like prescriptions and mail-in ballot applications, they're also a source of some comforts — either by delivering less essential items for lifting up people's spirits or just a familiar face. In this episode, Thomas Jackson is that familiar face, a postal worker of nearly two decades with a route running through the Pittsburgh neighborhoods of East Liberty and Lincoln-Lemington.

BE SURE TO SEE THE SHOWNOTES AND LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE HERE. Eve Picker: [00:00:14] Hi there. Thanks so much for joining me today for the latest episode of Impact Real Estate Investing.   [00:00:23] My guest today is Tom Murphy, Pittsburgh's turnaround mayor. He oversaw the difficult, but transformative transition of the city from the mid-1990s to mid-2000s. Those were turbulent times and included many highlights and many struggles. During his tenure, he declared a budget crisis, built two stadiums, created a $60 million development fund and built many miles of river trails. Tom Murphy is an authentic city expert.   Eve: [00:01:03] Be sure to go to EvePicker.com to find out more about Tom on the show notes page for this episode, and be sure to sign up for my newsletter so you can access information about impact real estate investing and get the latest news about the exciting projects on my crowdfunding platform, Small Change.   Eve: [00:01:38] Hello, Tom, I'm so delighted that you found time to join me today.   Tom Murphy: [00:01:42] I'm always honored to be with you. You were one of the pioneers in many developments in Pittsburgh when very few people saw the opportunity.   Eve: [00:01:50] You were the second longest serving mayor in the history of Pittsburgh. And in 1994, when Pittsburgh wasn't sure what it was going to become, was really on the verge of collapse. And you shepherded the city through a very turbulent transition from a place that had emptied out with the closing of steel mills and suburban flight, to a city transformed almost every respect. And I was in Pittsburgh for every moment of it. So, you reshaped Pittsburgh, kicking and screaming all the way.   Tom: [00:02:22] Underlining kicking and screaming, Eve. As you remember, every time we tried to do something, there were, there was controversy. I mean, it just, it was amazing to me.   Eve: [00:02:34] Well, this is slightly conservative city, so maybe that was part of it, but people couldn't imagine what you imagined. When you begin with a city that has lost its industry and half its people?   Tom: [00:02:47] Well, I'm a product of that, I mean, my father worked for 51 years at Jones & Laughlin Steel steel mill on the South Side. So, my whole life was defined by the shifts he worked there, I mean ... you know, he was, he worked in the mill. I mean, he wasn't a boss or anything, he just worked in the mill and our lives were shaped by that and ... and sort of everybody I knew pretty much, their lives were tied to the mill. And so I grew up with that. And to watch that disappear in the, really the 70s and the 80s, I was a state legislator on the North Side, and I don't think people appreciate how incredibly destructive it is for families. You know, where you had very traditional families where the husband went to work in the mill, you can make a good living, buy a house, buy a car, take a vacation and now all of a sudden that disappeared. You know, the wives went to work, kids who had thought about going to college deferred that, you know, we lost a whole generation from Western Pennsylvania – 500,000 people left and they were overwhelmingly are our kids, young people who were leaving, because they didn't see a future in Pittsburgh. And so having come through that, having lived it, you know, on the North Side, where we've lived for almost 50 years now, and how destructive it was, never thinking I would be mayor. When I became mayor, I mean, my focus was how do we stabilize this situation? And to do that, we needed to re-imagine Pittsburgh in lots of different ways. In how we educate kids, because you didn't need a high school education, let alone a college education to work in a steel mill. And you know, what we did with all this land, all of these industrial, thousands of acres of industrial property. And the culture of Pittsburgh, which, you know, was almost opposed in the technology industry because they were seen as non-union.   Tom: [00:04:40] And so we went through huge controversies in talking about re-imagining Pittsburgh. And now we've come out the other side and, you know, it looks very different.   Eve: [00:04:51] It does. Did you have a strategy from day one?   Tom: [00:04:57] Well, I laugh at that. I mean, hindsight always gives you the strategy. But we did in the sense that we felt we needed five things, right? We needed money. We were a flat broke city and ... you know, essentially, as you said, I mean, close to bankruptcy. And we needed to figure out how we will get money so we could invest in Pittsburgh and entice developers. Two, we wanted land control. A lot of this land was tied up in bankruptcies and it was, you know, uncertain titles. And so, a developer who has a choice of buying a 100-acre greenfield site or 100-acre steel mill site, they're going to buy the greenfield site. It's safer. And the third was that we needed a really good team of people who were going to be public entrepreneurs, in effect, that were willing to take risk. And the fourth thing we needed, we needed a vision. We needed to be, to sort of know where we wanted to go. And the fifth thing is we needed good public-private partnerships. We needed people who believed that Pittsburgh could be a different place. And you remember back then, Eve, you were one of the few people that ...   Eve: [00:06:08] Yeh.   Tom: [00:06:08] ... were willing to invest in places like East Liberty. It was very hard to get local developers to re-imagine Pittsburgh. They had their little niche. They were comfortable in it. They've been through 30 years of decline. And so all those ingredients, you know, we talked about them when I ran for mayor. And people obviously voted for me. But when we started to do this stuff, they said we didn't know you meant that. So where do we get money? And the first month or so I was Mayor we reduced the city's workforce, reduced the number of police officers we had, then shifted six million dollars of that money annually to finance a $60 million bond issue, which we called the Pittsburgh Development Fund, which gave us money to invest in the future. In every city, I mean, I talk, I meet with cities a lot and talk to them and that's one of the challenges they face is, your demands for the day-to-day. Just 'today' is huge in a city. I mean, everybody wants more police. Nobody's streets are getting salted enough, and potholes, and if you just spend the stuff on all your resources on today, nothing changes. I mean, you're Pittsburgh and in Pittsburgh we were still declining, so the challenge was how do we get some of those resources and use it to invest in the future, which entails risk.   Tom: [00:07:27] The second thing we did, Eve, we went out and bought, as you know, Mulugetta Birru was head of the Urban Redevelopment Authority, and we had him go out and buy almost 1500 acres of land. You know, we bought what was then the South Side works of Jones & Laughlin. We bought the slag dump in Squirrel Hill. We bought the old Sears site in East Liberty. And then, you know, we looked at each other and said, what do we do with this stuff? And that's when we began to form great partnerships with developers. Somebody like you who was willing to invest in that old building in East Liberty and, you know, and others. And the $60 million gave us the ability to create really creative and effective public-private partnerships that share the risk with developers who believe that Pittsburgh could be a different place. That's what we did.   Eve: [00:08:17] I was going to ask the question that, do you believe developers played an important role in the transformation of the city? Obviously you do.   Tom: [00:08:24] I do. I think place is everything. I think it has huge impact on how people live, I think, like crime rates, a whole host of other things. How they, what they think about themselves. I mean, if I live in a neighborhood that has, half the buildings are vacant and there's a lot of litter and everything, you know, I come out my door every morning, I probably have a different reaction than if I live in a neighborhood that has lots of gardens and clean. And so I think that, it has huge impact. And so developers, from our point of view, as you know, were really important partners. And this is, I tell this story all the time, is when we started to see things happen, developers would come and say, Mayor, I have a great idea for you. And we'd say, with all due respect, tell us why it's a great idea for you. And we'll decide whether it's a great idea for us, and if our self interests come together, we'll figure out how to be a good partner and share the risk with you. But that assumed we knew what we wanted and so that was one of the really big challenges. As you remember early in my administration, I had a really great planning director, Eloise Hirsh, who really helped shape that vision, as well as Tom Cox and Mulu and Steve Leaper, really helped shape that whole vision of what Pittsburgh could be. It was really reimagining, you know, old steel mills in the South Side and a slag dump in Squirrel Hill. And so we were looking at, not to ignore other things, but we were looking for things that could be catalytic, that could change people's image of Pittsburgh. And the ballparks obviously help with that, too. I mean that when I was running for mayor, I wasn't planning to be, have anything to do with sports stadiums. And that sort of was one of the challenges of running the city, as you know, I didn't think about it. And then all of a sudden, it's the number-one topic.   Eve: [00:10:17] Well, it's always the number one topic in Pittsburgh. Sports, so.   [00:10:20] Well, unfortunately, I mean, I don't know if you know the story, Eve. As I, when I ran for mayor, I was elected mayor in November. In early December, the then-owners of the Pirates gave me a letter that said they intended to sell the team. I don't even know this, that Dick Caligiuri many years ago had signed an agreement with the team that if ever they were going to sell it, that the city would in affect own the team for nine months in which they would be required to find a buyer. And if we couldn't in nine months find a buyer, then the team could be sold to another city. And so there I was, having run on crimes, jobs and taxes, now owning a baseball team. It really, literally when I was running in November, I had no idea that the first year of my time as mayor, two years, would be dominated by trying to figure out how to build a baseball park and a football stadium and a convention center. So, that's life, right? So, we had to figure it out, right?   Eve: [00:11:20] When the sun goes down, with Downtown as a backdrop, it's a very special place.   Tom: [00:11:27] Well, it's a, my favorite seat in PNC Park, regardless of what the team is doing, is that, at the very highest point in the left field stands, and because the view of the city at dusk like that is incredible.   Eve: [00:11:41] Was the Pittsburgh Development Fund the most important thing that you implemented? Were there the other programs or policies with very big impact?   Tom: [00:11:49] Well, what's the Development Fund gave us is, it gave us the ability to be, to be flexible. When I go to lots of cities, they would say, we'd love to do this, but we don't have any money. The money, for better, for worse, becomes a really important part of being able to pursue your dreams. And so the Development Fund was our money in the sense that we didn't have to look to the state or the federal government, you know, to wait for months or a year before you figure out whether you're going to get the money or not. We also, as you know, in the URA, people at the URA led by Mulu and Steve, were very entrepreneurial in understanding how they used tax increment financing and other federal and state sources, so it ... it was fairly typical, it might be true in your deal, your deals that you were doing, is that you were getting sources of money from 10 or 12 different sources. And what I have found is that's unusual in a lot of cities, that cities are not entrepreneurial like that, of understanding how you mix and match money to make a deal work. So, what I say, Eve, is it's really, it's really a market driven approach, is that basically you as a developer come and say, you know, I want to do this building, but this is what the bank is going to lend me, and there's this gap in financing, and if it's something we want to see happen, we being the city in this case, then we become your partner and figure out how to help finance it, whether it's our Development Fund or other sources.   Eve: [00:13:30] My experience with the Liberty Bank Building was very typical. I think I had 12 sources of financing.   Tom: [00:13:36] Yeh.   Eve: [00:13:36] Most of the URA money, which I'm really glad gets to be recycled. But Mulu was extremely entrepreneurial. He, first of all, he didn't quite trust me when we started ...   Tom: [00:13:36] Well, but you were a small developer at the time, right? With not a long track record. But with great ideas.   Eve: [00:14:05] There were really interesting meetings. I really became very fond of Mulu. So, but he, you know, his approach was, look, we have this amount of money. 300,000 dollars out of this pot of money, or whatever it was. And you need two million. Go away and think about how it might work. And so I would come back and I'd say, look, I could make it work if you took little interest payments for two years or, you know, whatever, whatever it was that made it to some sort of stabilized scenario. I learned a lot. And then, you know, things shifted very much, and I think the URA lost a lot of its funding in the mid-2000s and the banks got more skittish and it all changed, right?   Tom: [00:14:49] Well, it did and it didn't. I mean, I think the philosophy in the city changed and maybe ... so I was saying this about being market driven. Mulu met with you and you convinced him that the market was what it was, that without flexible public money that could defer interest or payments even for a few years, that that this deal was not going to happen, and we wanted it to happen, and so we would make the loan. The market has become much better in Pittsburgh, though. You were, you know, in my view, the early bird gets the worm in this case, in the case of your building, you were, you were the early bird. Is that you got better financing then maybe after the market's healthy. So, we tried to be market sensitive in that sense. And at the same time, recognize that we wanted these deals to happen, so we were willing to put, risk public money. I think the key to it, what I learned about myself in this, Eve, as I was, I am not a good day-to-day manager, but I understood how to hire good people and just give them room. And if a deal blew up, you know, that's what's going to get reported on the news. But I need to be willing to support the people if they did the deal for the right reasons and it just didn't work. And we had some of those done, you know, Fifth and Forbes Downtown was one of those examples. But we were willing to take those risks, whether it was with you or other developers, that we didn't know with the market, we didn't know if people would move and live on a slag dump in Squirrel Hill or, you know, live in apartments in South Side. We didn't know what the market was. We were way out there and that was the risk involved in this, and using public money.   Eve: [00:16:33] I moved to Pittsburgh accidentally and was kind of involved in all of this on the periphery, and it really shaped my life. The way I think about cities is very different now. So, thank you for that. The plan that did not work out was the redevelopment plan to reshape Downtown which...   Tom: [00:16:49] Actually it worked though didn't it? I mean, four of the five blocks that we were going to acquire have been redeveloped.   Eve: [00:16:57] Yes, it did work. But my question was, yeah, it just took time, didn't it? Took time for people to get used to the idea.   Tom: [00:17:04] Well, it looks differently than what we would have, I mean, we were more focused on a retail strategy and it might or might not have worked. I don't know.   Eve: [00:17:12] Well, today with Amazon, it might have backfired again.   Tom: [00:17:15] And that's where you don't, I don't know with today's retailing whether it would have worked or not. If we would have been able to put together sort of what we were thinking. But, in any case, all five blocks have now been redeveloped, that we focused on. And it's a much more vibrant place. We could see the decline there. I mean, we could look at the sales numbers of businesses that were there and just see the decline of what was going on, and I think felt the need to try to intervene, you know, and maybe did it really in a clumsy kind of way. And but, you know, at the end of the day, it was a necessary intervention that ended up working. PNC played a big part, was a big partner in that with their new building   Eve: [00:17:59] Yes. It was really difficult, I remember. What would you do differently today? A different city.   Tom: [00:18:06] When I've come to really love is the public spaces. So, in East Liberty, I think we would have had, we had the opportunity, which we didn't do, to create a sort of a central plaza somewhere there. That we could have really recreated a much more, you know, in a public space, it can be the most democratic place in the city. And so, I mean and so with Home Depot, we were looking to make a democratic place where people, wealthy people and poor people would all shop. If I had done East Liberty thoughtfully more, maybe we would have created a public space like that, too. And Market Square, in many ways, plays that role Downtown now. There's a public space where people of, with all incomes and all backgrounds show up. And so even in smaller neighborhoods like Lawrenceville and other places, because there were such, you know, abandonment of property, we had opportunities to really create better public spaces, little town squares. Because one of the strengths of Pittsburgh is with its 90 neighborhoods is, is that we have this real sense of communities and I've come to appreciate that much more. And we really would have focused more on creating places where that community can play out in neighborhoods like Lawrenceville and other places. I go to China a fair amount. Not recently. thank goodness. And when I, I get up early in the morning to go for a run and one of the things I see there, and China has done a very bad job of creating public spaces, but where there is public spaces like at six, seven o'clock in the morning, there are hundreds of people there in the plaza doing tai chi or dancing to a boombox. It's this great sense of community. There's lots of older people or people running. And you can see feel this community, I mean, people talking and laughing. Every morning they're there. And we don't have that tradition in America. But it would be wonderful. We did, but but we ought to create places where that happens. You know, the Blue Slide Playground is a place like that in Squirrel Hill. I mean, famous now because of Mac Miller.   Eve: [00:20:24] I visited Beijing three years ago, and the photo I loved the most from there is a small urban park which had exercise equipment in it. And in fact, I saw this several times ...   Tom: [00:20:34] Right.   Eve: [00:20:35] ... exercise equipment, really basic. And you could see people all congregating, and doing their little exercises in the park, open to everyone, It was fabulous.   Tom: [00:20:46] Right. We did a half step under Eloise's leadership in public works. We made a decision to rebuild all of our 100 and some neighborhood parks, like the Blue Slide Playground or the Schenley Park, and also many of the smaller ones. And we would have community meetings and we would hire landscape architects who would meet with the community and, you know, with the playbooks. And then they would work to design the kind of playground they wanted. They would given a budget, 100, 150 thousand dollars, and they could pick from the play equipment books, the playground they wanted. But the instinct we had was right, but we should have expanded it. And in many neighborhoods where, like Homewood. I mean, you have an opportunity in Homewood, still today, I think, to create a really great plaza that would become the center of Homewood, and how you would do that. And East Liberty represented that opportunity. I mean, there were, as you remember, lots of vacant land there that was tax, you know, essentially abandoned. So that's probably one of my bigger regrets, was not creating places where that sense of community can play out.   Eve: [00:21:58] What do you love most about Pittsburgh? I know you still live here.   Tom: [00:22:01] Our strength and our weakness is our parochialism and that's what I love most ... is that we're an unusually friendly city. I'm in Washington four days a week, right? And my habit in Pittsburgh is pretty much everybody you see, even before I was mayor, but when I'm mayor I don't know whether I know them or not, or they know me. So you say hello to people, right? You get on an elevator, you say good morning, right? People, you do that in Washington, D.C. people look at you like you're ... going to rob them. You know, it's a weird feeling for me. I see that in lots of cities. I would just did Orlando for a couple of days that I felt it there. Same thing, is that, sort of people don't make eye contact, don't acknowledge. I mean, if there was just two of you in a place, that you don't, they don't acknowledge you.   Eve: [00:22:50] You know, that's interesting. There are other cities like, I think Atlanta and Detroit are very friendly. I always notice it when I go there.   Tom: [00:22:56] Yeah. So it's, and I hear that. It's funny, I mean, when I speak, and I was in 50 cities last year, so I end up engaging with thousands of people. One, is the numbers of people that have lived in Pittsburgh. You know, I mean, that's sort of the legacy. I always say you're our failures. We couldn't give you a reason to stay, you know, there's so many people that left in the 70s and the 80s. And the other is inevitably people who are not from Pittsburgh. I just was talking to a guy in Orlando yesterday who, his daughter and he, and they've never had any connection with Pittsburgh, but she loves the Pittsburgh Penguins. And they go to Pittsburgh every year to see a couple of Penguins game, and he was telling me he's going in March and, you know, he said, I've never been to a friendlier place in my life. Everybody talks to you and it's just, it's a great place, right? We don't even think of that. And that's partly what I like. And I think that's the strength of Pittsburgh. When I say parochial is that we are really, those of us who are from Pittsburgh or who moved there, you become really rooted in your neighborhood, and in the city. I think in places like Orlando, that is, you know, a lot of Florida cities in California and even Texas cities. You know, there's lots of new residents. And so they don't have that kind of history. And so I, that's part of the challenge of Pittsburgh. How to keep that, and at the same time not have it be a deterrent to making Pittsburgh a competitive city.   Eve: [00:24:28] But you know, I think what's most interestingly Pittsburgh, about Pittsburgh to me, is again, I've always thought it's topography saved it from becoming what Detroit has become.   Tom: [00:24:40] Oh, I think definitely, I mean, the hills and valleys and how Pittsburgh is defined, I think is a large part because of its topography. You know, I learned that running for office when I was in the legislature, when I first ran for the legislature. If you confuse people from Spring Garden with people from Spring Hill, they will never vote for you. I mean, they're very rooted in their neighborhoods, right? And so there's that whole hierarchy like that around Pittsburgh. When I meet somebody, when they say they're from Pittsburgh, I typically say, where did you go to school? And that tells me a lot about them.   Eve: [00:25:19] Interesting. Yeah, I think the topography also, it kind of contains each neighborhood. So, I think that that sense of being in a neighborhood is going to stay.  I can't, I can't see it disappearing in the city.   Tom: [00:25:33] No, and that's what, when I was talking about the public space, I mean that's, that's what I have a big regret it was around that idea of how do you build even a stronger sense community using public space, whether it's playgrounds or a park, a community. How do you in a very thoughtful way connect people in that neighborhood so they feel a sense of place? And there's a purpose for that, because I think if people feel rooted in their neighborhood, I think they're willing to put up with a lot of problems if they see themselves and others committed to wanting to making it better. I mean, if I can see a light at the end of the tunnel, I'm willing to stay on the journey, right? A lot of people are not willing if they don't see any end to it. And I think of a neighborhood like Allentown that's been through a lot of problems. And yet, there's a strong core of people in Allentown who have really stayed with that neighborhood. And, you know, it has gone up and done and now I think it's back, going back up again. I know we used say, Eve, you know, that houses in the North Side up in Fineview at the time, I mean, you could buy for 30 or 40 thousand dollars. And we said if Pittsburgh's population were like any other city and it was growing, those houses would be worth a million dollars with the views. And that was part of the problem, is that we weren't growing as a city. And it's still part of the challenge of Pittsburgh, is that we're doing much better, but we're still not growing compared to, certainly the region is not, compared to a lot of other cities and communities.   Eve: [00:27:19] Today you work, you're a senior fellow at the Urban Land Institute, which some of my listeners may not know about. What do you do in your role there?   Tom: [00:27:32] So the Urban Land Institute is an organization founded about 75 years ago by a group of developers concerned about the quality of development beginning to happen in America. And fast forward, the Urban Land Institute now has about 50,000 members worldwide. And it really, it's focus is how do you create thriving communities? And ULI had participated in several programs in Pittsburgh when I was mayor, and then I got recruited to speak at different ULI events. And when I was leaving as mayor, it was right after Katrina in New Orleans and along the Mississippi coast. And they asked me whether I would go down and work with the mayor of New Orleans and with other public officials across the Mississippi coast. And so I did that for about a year and a half after leaving as mayor. And it was fascinating. I mean, it was really a fascinating experience. And, you know, in New Orleans, their mayor ended up going to jail for 15 years. And the political structure was really fairly inept back then. It's gotten better. And so I watched, really, New Orleans return in large part because of grassroots decisions and leadership, through churches and nonprofit groups and neighborhood groups, and a lot of outside help. Foundations and movie stars like Brad Pitt. But people, but ultimately, the up-swelling was really, really bottom up. It wasn't top down. And so it was a fascinating experience to work in, there. And I still am, I was on the board for many years of a community development corporation there. So it's been an experience. Since then I got to about 50 cities a year and speak at ULI events or other events, and then often end up working with cities for a while. And I've written several papers – working on one now for ULI.   Tom: [00:29:40] It's been a good, a good experience, really a great experience after being a mayor. And part of what I get asked to do all over the world is, in part I get asked to talk about Pittsburgh. How we went from this failing industrial city  to what we're becoming. And the reason I get asked by, about that is, wheat I've come to realize, Eve, is virtually every city in the world, whether it's Hong Kong or London or Dublin, or are all struggling with some of the same issues that we went through in Pittsburgh, of sort of what what is our place in the world? We were forced to have that conversation because of the collapse of the steel industry. Other cities have not had that kind of dramatic change, but they are seeing the world change and they are trying to figure out how to  stay current and get in front of those changes and manage them.   Eve: [00:30:34] Are there any current trends in real estate development that interest you the most?   [00:30:39] Well,every city, every place I've been, and this is, I mean, last month I was in Dublin and London, right. And I was supposed to go, I go to China about four times a year. I was supposed to be going in March. My plane trips are now all being canceled, but I was going to cancel anyhow. But so whether it's cities in China or European cities, affordability is a huge issue. Of how do people, where do people live? And how do they afford to live? And so how cities develop affordable housing is a big, big issue. Where am I going to work? Because of the impact of technology and we see it in Pittsburgh up close every day as we see a whole litany of driverless cars on the streets of Pittsburgh or autonomous vehicles with attendants in them. But, you know, pretty soon the attendance won't be there. As I mentioned, I was in Orlando yesterday, just east of Downtown Orlando but still in Orlando is a place called Lake Nona. And they now have, I don't know, a half a dozen driverless autonomous buses that drive people around this very large development. Nobody driving. Nobody in, no driver. And no attendant. It is just on its own already on a sort of a, sort of private street where bikes and others places can go, but not cars. So we're seeing this happen and what does that mean? I mean, if you think of 50 percent of the land use of a typical city is for cars, between roads and parking and everything like that, what does that do to how we think about cities. And not it's not even that kind of technology. It's why do young people want to come places? Part of what I say is what does General Electric and McDonald's and Marriott and Fifth Third Bank and Heinz Kraft Foods and what they have in common is over the last five years they've all moved their headquarters from suburban office parks into cities. And why are they doing that? They're doing it because ... they're having a hard time recruiting talent, young people, to move to the suburban office park. Where you need a car to get to. You know, if you do a survey of the Google employees in East Liberty, I'm betting that 25, 30 percent of them either walk or ride a bike to work. So that has huge implications on cities. You know, do you spend your money building more highways or do you build a transit system. That's part of Orlando's challenge. They don't have a good transit system and now they're  strangling, you know, because of the congestion.   Eve: [00:33:33] Yeah. It's changing.   [00:33:34] So it's those debates that I'm watching all over. Mobility is a huge conversation. The equity conversation, I mean, one of the things I see really fascinating, The New York Times did this, I thought, very cruelly. A few months ago they did an article about cities and they talked about winners and losers.   Eve: [00:33:56] Yes.   Tom: [00:33:56] And they talked, and they compared Nashville and Birmingham. And they said Nashville is a winner, they both start at the same place 25 years ago. Nashville is now a hot city, booming, and Birmingham is not. And they talk about, why, how that happens is really a lot to do with leadership. And then within, so we're seeing cities sort of separate themselves, if you understand, those that are, where Amazon is going to consider locating, and those that are not. And what are the ingredients that make that cut? And then the other, within cities we are watching a huge divide with lower income people and the people that are sort of part of the new economy. And so, I think that equity issue is a huge challenge for cities also.   Eve: [00:34:43] Yes. You know, I have always thought that one of the things that's most overlooked in discussions about cities and how to grow them is their connection to other cities. And, you know, I think that's probably Pittsburgh's growth problem. It takes a really long time go by train.   Tom: [00:35:00] Well, we lost a whole generation of people that would normally be having babies.   Eve: [00:35:07] If you want to get to New York by train, it's a day. There's no easy, fast way to get to work hubs. We're sort of a little bit stranded. And I was always puzzled by the fact that we, you know, people would talk about better transit in the city, but I wanted better transit to other places, nearby, to open up opportunities. If I wanted to do a development project in a city, I wanted to be able to get there in a day in and back. Right?   Tom: [00:35:37] Right.   Eve: [00:35:37] So I, you know, I wonder if you plot out those connections, you know, where the, you know, the cities done well, will land.   [00:35:49] I think it's a mix. I think mobility is one piece of the conversation of how easy it is to move around a city. Our son, for example, is now 29 years old, does not even have a driver's license. He lives in Pittsburgh. On the North Side right now with us, he's moving, though. You know, he is, has been able to manage fine living in Pittsburgh, using Uber and using public transit and, you know, walking a host of other things and abusing his friends every once while they're able to, you know, he's able to sort of manage living in a city pretty well. But I think mobility is part of the conversation. And that's what, when I was becoming mayor, Eve, our focus was we need to figure out how to create a diversity of jobs. And we needed to make Pittsburgh a place where people wanted to live. You know, we're never going to be, maybe we will someday, we're never going to be a warm city. Like I was just in Orlando yesterday. It was 90 degrees. We're not going to be near the ocean, but we had other assets. And so, as you might remember, I was very focused on building riverfront trails for that reason is that was an underutilized asset. You know, we watched, you know, a great music and bar scene sort of, and that happened organically. It's funny, I watch the, I read the media in Pittsburgh now about the Strip District and we made a very intentional decision not to do anything in the Strip District. We, you know, people would come and why don't we do this and why don't we do that in the Strip District.tAnd we really said The place is working really well. Why do we want to get involved in it? Let it, it's just happening on its own. So. You know, that it's interesting that that's the big, big debate right now in Pittsburgh, I guess about, are we killing the Strip District. So I think that you make decisions, you know, some of them are going to be right. Some of them were wrong. Hindsight will tell you whether it works or not.   Eve: [00:37:56] You know, this show is about real estate impact investing. And I want to know what you think a key factor is that makes a real estate development project impactful.   Tom: [00:38:06] You know, I think it's the public space. Is the building itself attractive, but it's the space around it, how it engages people that work in that building, and even people walking by, how they might use it. I think that, how it all connects. And you can get senses of it, right? When it works well? I think, you know, there are places in Pittsburgh that I think of that are just great places to be. People like to be there, right? I look at Mellon Park, you know, going back many, many years, long before I was mayor. Still a very iconic place on a nice summer day. It's packed with people, having lunch. And I think how that happens, and that's where the public private interface is so importantA and where the public needs to have, to be put money in the game, to say to a developer, you know, we want to get this quality in, and a developer might say, but I can't afford to do that. And if you look at the books and the market is going to be make it hard for the developer to do that, then there's a public role for that. I think another good example is that is Schenley Plaza, which for for 40 years or 50 years was a parking lot. I mean, think about that. I mean, I, you know, on one side is Schenley Park, on the other side are the museums, on the other side is the Pitt law school. And then on the other side, the Cathedral of Learning. And what is the highest and best use of that land for 50 years? It was surface parking. And Mark, this chancellor at Pitt and I got together and said we should be, we should do better than that. And so we work with the Parks Conservancy and came up with an idea to put a park there, to take the parking. And I got all this hate mail, but I'm never going to vote for you again. You're taking away my parking place. And I said, you know, you'll get over it. There'll be other places to park it. But this is, this, we can do better than that is the interest of a great university. To a great park. To a great museum. We can do better than that. And you look at that on a nice summer day, it's filled with people. So creating those kinds of places, I think is is that there's a responsibility of both the developer and the community. You know, you did something quirky Downtown with those statues. And I bet lots of people walk over, who maybe have never been in Pittsburgh, walk over just to look at them.   Eve: [00:40:58] Yes. In fact, I think the taxi drivers use it for directions when someone says, I want to go Downtown.   Tom: [00:41:05] Yeah. So that's what I mean. And look at Randyland on the North side.   Eve: [00:41:10] It's fabulous. Yeah.   Tom: [00:41:12] You know, I mean, it's just things like that make a cityS so the other word that we use a lot in ULI is authenticity, right? Pittsburgh has a great history. It has a great story. And we could still do better at telling that story. The South Side Works, when we started to develop that we put, had a competition for, and we brought artists and old steel workers who worked there together for like a morning of talking. And then we had a competition for artists. And there's, at the end of Hot Metal Bridge is a little monument that we established for the steelworkers. But Pittsburgh is an incredible story.   Eve: [00:41:56] So I'm going to ask one last question, because I've taken up a lot of your time.   Tom: [00:42:00] It's fine, I've enjoyed it. It's fun to talk to somebody who actually knows Pittsburgh, Eve.   Eve: [00:42:05] So is there something that you think could really change real estate development in the U.S., for the better?   Tom: [00:42:14] I think it is, is the idea, the partnership idea. I'm amazed that the cities I go to, many developers attitude is I want a minimize my involvement with the city. Maybe there's a reason for it. I want to get in and get out. I want to get the entitlements, whatever I may need and do what I want to do. So the challenge is the developer has a piece of property. The developer needs to figure out how to make money from that property. I accept that. I want the developer to make money from the property. On the other hand, the city, the city has the responsibility to build a great city. That it will never be a great city if these developers see their development as sort of an island disconnected from what's next to it. And so the city's responsibility is to figure out how that all fits together. Give you two examples that drive me nuts. I can drive on pretty much any suburban shopping street. I can go into a gas station. Maybe I want to go to the store next door. And I have to drive back out onto the highway. Or maybe I want to go to a store across the street, I have to go out on the highway. Maybe I have to drive a half a mile to get over there to the other side. So I can't, there's no sense of connection between any of that. And the other is, I watch in suburban areas like Cranberry Township subdivisions being developed of 100 acres or so. What would it take for those subdivisions that, maybe there's five different developers doing one hundred acres each, if they would, then the city's role would be to say we want to connect all this with a bike trail at the edge of your property so that every, so now instead of having a couple little playgrounds, you might have a five or ten mile bike ride, safe, off road. You don't have to worry about traffic with your little children. And there is examples of where the public fails. Both the public and private developers fail. Because you create great, great amenities if you begin to think in a bigger way rather than individual pieces of property. That's what's destroying development, and quality in America today.   Eve: [00:44:33] Yeah, I agree, I think we both believe that real estate development, just as a financial tool, as a way to make money, isn't making our cities better.   Tom: [00:44:43] Well, I think you make more money if you build quality. In the long run I think your development is more valuable. I mean, we didn't get into all the other sustainability and all that which a lot of cities are facing.   Eve: [00:44:54] Thank you very much.   Tom: [00:44:55] Look forward to see you sometime. Bye bye.   Eve: [00:45:04] That was Tom Murphy, past mayor of Pittsburgh. Tom thinks place is everything, so place is what he invested in during his long term as mayor. He did that by reducing operational costs and creating the Pittsburgh Development Fund, a $60 million fund focused on helping developers who were willing to work in places and on projects that made the city better and better. It was a very bold, and unpopular move, but paid off in ways that no one imagined, as did many other moves that Mayor Murphy made.   You can find out more about impact real estate investing and access the show notes for today's episode at my website, EvePicker.com. While you're there, sign up for my newsletter to find out more about how to make money in real estate while building better cities. Thank you so much for spending your time with me today. And thank you, Tom, for sharing your thoughts. We'll talk again soon. But for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

What’s a doctor to do when they become disenchanted with the healthcare system? Dr. Timothy Wong decided the answer was to start his own micro-practice.   In his office in the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Dr. Wong sees ~20 patients per day and only charges $35 for a visit.    This allow people without health insurance to get the care they desperately need. Dr. Wong believes that healthcare needs to be simple, needs to be about the patient & the doctor, and needs to be accessible.   His business model allows that to happen.   In this conversation, Dr. Wong and Aaron discuss how he got the idea for iHealth Clinic, how care gets delivered at his practice, and the way this model can spread & inspire change. Pittsburgh’s best conference to Expand your Mind & Fill your Heart happens once a year.   Dr. Timothy Wong’s Challenge; Let other healthcare providers know about direct-access primary care.   Connect with Dr. Timothy Wong Facebook iHealht Clinic website directaccessprimary.com   If you liked this interview, check out episode 399 with Hayden Cardiff where we discuss spinning a software company out of another firm, raising a $9 million Series A, and hiring in a high-growth startup. Underwritten by Piper Creative Piper Creative creates podcasts, vlogs, and videos for companies.    Our clients become better storytellers.    How? Click here and Learn more.   We work with Fortune 500s, medium-sized companies, and entrepreneurs.   Follow Piper as we grow YouTube TikTok Instagram Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | Spotify

Students at Pittsburgh Obama talk about aspects of voter suppression, Melia Lenker, a senior at Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School, with a poem entitled, Girls will be Girls, and Windafire, a teen from East Liberty, with a commentary on the cultural significance of hair. Background Music:"Maccary Bay" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

We chat with Chris Heise and Andrew Mathers from Transportation Research Center Inc. who will be hosting Year 3 of Autodrive Challenge. We chat about the facility's history, the new SMART Center, career oppurtunities, and what people can expect when they arrive for this year's competition. Learn more about TRC at http://www.trcpg.com/ Find out about TRC Careers at http://www.trcpg.com/careers/

In this episode of The Slaw: Staying on top of Pittsburgh, Aadam talks to Ben Wong about bahn mi sandwiches and pho. Ben and his wife Kellie own Bahn Mi & Ti in Lawrenceville and Two Sisters in East Liberty. Ben and Aadam talk about Vietnamese food, bubble tea and Ben shares some of his favorite places to eat around Pittsburgh. Stephanie shares one of her favorite North Side neighborhood events - the weekly Banjo Night at the Allegheny Elks Club. Our collaboration of the week highlights how Honeycomb Credi is helping Rolling Pepperoni open a storefront in Lawrenceville.     Bahn Mi & Ti4502 Butler Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15201 Facebook Page Instagram @banhmiandti   Two Sisters Vietnamese Kitchen 216 N. Highland Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15206 Facebook Page Instagram @twosisters_pgh   PennsylvAsia is a website that “has been exploring some of the cultural, educational, and social links between Pennsylvania and Asia since 2011.”   Some of Ben's favorite food spots around Pittsburgh: Gaucho [Check out our guide to vegan eats at Gaucho]  Yuzu Kitchen Ki Ramen Unami [Take a listen to Episode 01 of The Slaw, we talk to DJ Arie Cole who is at Unami every Friday night] Ki Pollo Meat & Potatoes Hyde Park Steak House   Events: Every Wednesday - Banjo Night @ The Allegheny Elks & Bluegrass Jam @ The Park House Stephanie talks about why the North Side is the place to be on Wednesday nights.  Banjo Night @ Allegheny Elks Bluegrass Jam @ The Park House with the Shelf Life String Band   A very Pittsburgh Collaboration: Honeycomb Credit & Rolling Pepperoni Aadam shares one of the things he is looking forward to in 2020 - Rolling Pepperoni will be opening a storefront in Lawrenceville. Thanks to the help of Honeycomb Credit, a crowdfunding platform for small businesses from Pittsburgh, Rolling Pepperoni is expanding into its own storefront on Butler Street.    EMBED: https://www.facebook.com/honeycombcredit/posts/2409694966015640    Give Us a Call Have an event we should know about? Know of a partnership we should highlight on the podcast? How about a collaboration? We'd love to hear from you!   We're always looking for new Pittsburgh stories to share. If you leave a message we just might feature your pick in our newsletter or on our podcast.   Give us a call and leave a message. We want to hear from you!   412-368-6595    * Please note, By leaving a message on this service, you consent to your voice being recorded and used by Very Local Pittsburgh in The Slaw podcast and elsewhere. Subscribe to The Slaw: Staying on Top of Pittsburgh podcast   The Slaw Podcast is available on: iTunes Spotify   Follow Very Local for more Pittsburgh updates: Very Local Pittsburgh Website Twitter @VeryLocalPGH Facebook Instagram  YouTube

In this episode of The Slaw: Staying on top of Pittsburgh, we talk to Boaz Frankel, a writer, filmmaker and contributor to Very Local about the puppet from The Dark Crystal that lives at the Children's Museum and teaching Elmo some Pittsburghese. For this weeks collaboration, we take a look at the partnership between Hop Farm Brewing and Provision PGH. And the Very Local team shares some of the events we are looking forward to in 2020.    MEET BOAZ FRANKEL - WRITER, FILMMAKER & PITTSBURGH PUPPET RESEARCHER Boaz and his wife, author Brooke Barker (aka Sad Animal Facts) moved to Pittsburgh earlier this year. Boaz has created videos for Very Local Pittsburgh as well as interviewed some Pittsbughers over their favorite sandwich.    Learn more about Boaz on his website StuffByBoaz.com and you can  follow Boaz on Twitter @boazf and Instagram @BoazFrankel.   Videos that Boaz has created for Very Local Pittsburgh include profiles of The Pretzel Shop, The Zenith Cafe and the Farmer's Cooperative of East Liberty.   Some of the Pittsburghers that Boaz has interviewed for Very Local: Damon Young Josh Getzoff, Announcer for Pittsburgh Penguins Mayor Bill Peduto Pastry Chef Casey Renee Rick Sebak   Visit Pittsburgh.VeryLocal.com to read more about both urSol the Chanter at the Pittsburgh Children's Museum and Elmo's visit to Pittsburgh.  Show Notes: In this episode of The Slaw: Staying on top of Pittsburgh, we talk to Boaz Frankel, a writer, filmmaker and contributor to Very Local about the puppet from The Dark Crystal that lives at the Children's Museum and teaching Elmo some Pittsburghese. For this weeks collaboration, we take a look at the partnership between Hop Farm Brewing and Provision PGH. And the Very Local team shares some of the events we are looking forward to in 2020.  Meet Boaz Frankel, Writer & Filmmaker Boaz and his wife, author Brooke Barker (aka Sad Animal Facts) moved to Pittsburgh earlier this year. Boaz has created video for Very Local Pittsburgh as well as interviewed some Pittsbughers over their favorite sandwich.    Learn more about Boaz on his website StuffByBoaz.com and you can  follow Boaz on Twitter @boazf and Instagram @BoazFrankel.   Here a some of the videos Boaz has created for Very Local Pittsburgh:  Pretzel Shop The Zenith Cafe Farmer's Cooperative of East Liberty Here are some of the Pittsburghers that Boaz has interviewed for Very Local: Damon Young Josh Getzoff, Announcer for Pittsburgh Penguins Mayor Bill Peduto Pastry Chef Casey Renee Rick Sebak   urSol the Chanter from The Dark Crystal You can read more about urSol the Chanter and The Pittsburgh Children's Museum here.    Embed: https://www.facebook.com/WQEDPittsburgh/posts/10156233217661150   Elmo loves Yinz too Check out Boaz's interview with Elmo here.  Embed: https://twitter.com/elmo/status/1139542786536083456?lang=en A very Pittsburgh Collaboration: Hop Farm Brewing & Provision PGH https://www.instagram.com/p/B1jezl_hTmL/   This week's collaboration is a food and beer pairing. Provision PGH, which started as part of Smallman Galley, is now providing the food at Hop Farm Brewing in Lawrenceville.    Embed: PGH Mag story from Hal https://www.pittsburghmagazine.com/hop-farm-brewing-company-and-provision-pgh-combine-forces/    Events: What we are looking forward to in 2020   Stephanie: Pittonatonk will return for the annual May Day celebration. Special guests to be announced soon.  Aadam: Cinderlands in Lawrenceville becomes Cinderlands Foederhouse. Grand re-opening on January 23.  Lindsay: Dirty Dozen Bike Ride takes place in the fall. Hundreds of cyclists try to tackle a dozen of the steepest hills in town in one day.    Embed: https://youtu.be/lODUAvbVRnM    Give Us a Call Have an event we should know about? Know of a partnership we should highlight on the podcast? How about a collaboration? We'd love to hear from you!   We're always looking for new Pittsburgh stories to share. If you leave a message we just might feature your pick in our newsletter or on our podcast.   Give us a call and leave a message. We want to hear from you!   412-368-6595    * Please note, By leaving a message on this service, you consent to your voice being recorded and used by Very Local Pittsburgh in The Slaw podcast and elsewhere. Subscribe to The Slaw: Staying on Top of Pittsburgh podcast   The Slaw Podcast is available on: iTunes Spotify   Follow Very Local for more Pittsburgh updates: Very Local Pittsburgh Website Twitter @VeryLocalPGH Facebook Instagram  YouTube

Vidya Surti, a junior at North Allegheny High School, with a commentary on gluten intolerance, Anthony John Wiles Jr., a sophomore at Sewickley Academy, with an original poem entitled, Georgia Heat, and Winston Nunley, a sophomore from East Liberty, with a commentary on gender presumptions. Background Music:"Maccary Bay" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

The city of Pittsburgh and East Liberty-based startup Allvision IO are embarking on a mission to track down the city’s streetlights. The city's PGH Lab program, a startup incubator, recently named Allvision as a member of its latest cohort. The team will be working with the Department of Innovation and Performance to create a database of the city’s streetlights for Pittsburgh's Department of Mobility and Infrastructure, or DOMI. DOMI Director Karina Ricks said they chose streetlights because the city has about 60,000 of them, but doesn’t have a clear picture of where they’re all located. "We have some of that information, but [Allvision's] data collection will help flesh that out," Ricks said. "Just to give us a more robust picture." Ricks said the data would be used, in part, to look for light deficiencies in the city. Allvision CEO Aaron Morris said this is the second collaboration between the company and DOMI. The team previously helped the city map street parking in the Strip

Craig Hoff and Diane Peters from Kettering University in Flint, Mich., discuss the university’s Mobility Research Center and how a recent grant allows startup companies to use the center for testing. Later, Maryn Weimer, from the Transportation Research Center in East Liberty, Ohio, and Patrick Smith of DriveOhio talk about the state’s role in the smart mobility conversation.

Today's CitySpeaks podcast features Josiah Gilliam, My Brother’s Keeper Coordinator for the City of Pittsburgh. MBK enhances opportunity and outcomes for black men and boys in areas such as literacy, mentoring, workforce development, and violence prevention. Josiah is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University and lives in East Liberty.      Read more about Josiah here: https://pittsburghpa.gov/mayor/gilliam  Find more information about My Brother’s Keeper here: https://pittsburghpa.gov/mayor/mbk/index.htmlAll-for-All –  Check out Change Agency here: https://www.changeagency.world/all-for-all/ And 1Hood Media: https://www.1hood.org/   Thanks for listening. Hear more episodes of Pittsburgh City Theatre's CitySpeaks podcast here: https://postindustrial.com/cityspeaks/  

BE SURE TO SEE THE SHOWNOTES AND LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE HERE. Eve Picker: Hey, everyone, this is Eve Picker, and if you listen to this podcast series, you're going to learn how to make some change. Thanks so much for joining me today for the latest episode of Impact Real Estate Investing. My guest today is Joshua Lavrinc, a colleague of mine in Pittsburgh. Josh is the CEO of Grove Community Development, a real estate development and consulting company. He's also the CEO of Callay Capital, a fund advisory and management company. BE SURE TO LISTEN TO THE PODCAST AND SEE THE SHOWNOTES ON THIS PAGE HERE. Eve Picker: While Josh started his professional life as an attorney, he pretty quickly moved into the capital-raising world and has stayed there ever since, but he shifted his role to developer, development consultant, and fund manager, squarely in the impact arena. What sets Josh apart is the type of funds and projects he's involved in. He's carved out a little niche for himself in Pittsburgh, helping to raise and manage funds like the Strategic Investment Fund and the Power of 32 Site Development Funds.   Eve Picker: In this podcast, we explore the inherent challenges in impact investing. Be sure to go to EvePicker.com to find out more about Josh on the show notes page for this episode and be sure to sign up for my newsletter, so you can access information about impact real estate investing and get the latest news about the exciting projects on my crowdfunding platform, Small Change.   Eve Picker: Hi, Josh, how are you?   Josh Lavrinc: Good morning, Eve. I'm very well, thank you.   Eve Picker: Josh, I know a lot about you, but our listeners do not. I would love you to just tell us a little bit about yourself.   Josh Lavrinc: Fantastic. Well, thanks for the opportunity to speak. I'm in Pittsburgh, as you are these days, working on real estate investment, in particular, for socially responsible mission-based investments, which we'll talk about as we proceed in the conversation.   Josh Lavrinc: My background ... I've lived in several places in the Northeast and went to college, undergrad, at Penn State, where I learned accounting, among other things; started my career as an accountant very briefly, before deciding to continue on to law school. After studying accounting and being in an accounting firm for a short while, I decided to proceed to law school, and went to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia with my now wife.   Josh Lavrinc: We stayed there for about five years, through law school and practicing law, really in the areas- two areas - one, real estate finance and development and the other area, structured finance, working, in particular, on commercial mortgage securitization for large rating agency clients and large investor clients. Then combining that with a more traditional dirt practice, as they call it, on real estate development, and then representing banks, insurance companies on lending and investment, as well.   Josh Lavrinc: When it was time to have children - my wife is from Pittsburgh - we came back to Pittsburgh and here we've been since about 2005. I continued practicing law for a few years until the market crashed in 2008. I had left the law firm to start a development career and started, actually, a distressed debt strategy that was difficult to pull off, raising capital and sourcing distressed debt transactions as a way to try and acquire property at the right basis during that cycle.   Josh Lavrinc: With little resources to pursue that strategy, my partner and I at the time - he was also young with new children in the house, like I - we decided to look at residential real estate as an overlooked asset class; something that had been hit pretty hard by the financial crisis. We started a real estate development and construction company in Pittsburgh, which went on. After starting that up. about 24 months into it, I sold my interests and moved on to the mission-based investment fund management platform that I've grown and am part of now. I sold those interests, and he went on to become the largest owner of houses in Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is located, in 2014..   Josh Lavrinc: I have a residential development and an investment background thanks to those couple of years, but I've moved back into commercial, which was much more of my professional training. I'm excitedly applying my skills for a particular mission rather than an array of clients, an array of projects, where I had responsibilities previously, just to execute on a transaction somewhat disconnected from the underlying projects. Now, I'm on the front side of the transaction, helping, assisting clients in figuring out how to finance those projects or actually providing the capital for those projects, and with a particular mission, as I was saying [cross talk] I can talk a little bit about that.   Eve Picker: Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about the mission? That'd be really great.   Josh Lavrinc: My current partner, Jim Noland, had a mortgage banking firm back in Pittsburgh that he had started in the late '70s-early '80s. At some point, towards the end of that decade, some of the local union building trades came to him and said, "We've been investing in these national strategies with our local pension fund money. They will create financial returns, but they're invested in projects at major metros that are very large, and they don't really have any impact on us, here locally, so we would like to see if we can invest our money in local projects, create jobs, and create financial return."   Josh Lavrinc: So, before it became popular to talk about responsible investments or mission-based investment, here was a fund that formed. Fast forward, that fund is called the Employees Real Estate Construction Trust. It's a regional fund from Cleveland, Ohio, through West Virginia that has a collection of union, municipal and private pension fund investors, the majority of whom originally were local union building trades. There is a 100-percent union building-trade labor requirement attached to those funds for every investment they do, in order to create high-quality jobs through the union building trades and invest that money for financial return, locally.   Eve Picker: How much has been invested locally through that fund over the years?   Josh Lavrinc: It's been, I believe, over a billion dollars at this point, although the corpus of the funds is in the $200 million range, a little over that [cross talk]   Eve Picker: -that's pretty high impact, Josh.   Josh Lavrinc: Pretty high impact, and that's not a track record I can claim responsibility for. There's a great team. There's a trustee of those funds, AmeriServ Bank. My partner, Jim Noland, and his company, Penn Trust Real Estate Advisory Services, Incorporated, of which I was part, has served as the real estate advisor, essentially in charge of origination, and execution, and servicing of all those assets. There are strategies within those funds - a debt strategy and an equity strategy. They've been very flexible in the market; able to do things a little more aggressively than conventional lenders and have built up a great reputation in the development community in this region, as a result of that, and their great, diligent, and friendly relationships.   Eve Picker: That's how you dipped your toe in the water of impact and socially responsible developments. If you fast forward today, what other projects have you worked on or what other funds have you managed that fit that criteria?   Josh Lavrinc: Great. When I met Jim Noland on a nonprofit board he and I were serving on, he was pursuing a program with the State of Pennsylvania - the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, I should say - called the Building Pennsylvania Mezzanine Loan Program, trying to do support; provide gap financing to support commercial projects in promoting an economic development mission in the state. That program successfully was pursued, and we've used that a number of times, including to finance the Ace Hotel here in Pittsburgh. That's one additional mission-based fund that we continue to manage from time to time.   Eve Picker: Be sure to go to EvePicker.com and sign up for my free educational newsletter about impact real estate investing. You'll be among the first to hear about new projects you can invest in. That's EvePicker.com. Thanks so much.   Eve Picker: We should tell people, the Ace Hotel in Pittsburgh is a pretty high-impact project, because it's a hotel that was ... The hotel actually re-utilized, renovated a beautiful old building that had been long vacant in a very underserved neighborhood that was quite poor at the time. It really did a number of amazing things. It's not just an Ace Hotel. It's an Ace Hotel that really made an impact, I think.   Josh Lavrinc: Yeah, it came at a time, just before this ... Really at the cusp for ... This neighborhood in Pittsburgh, East Liberty, had been, prior to that, fairly distressed. Certainly, the Bakery Square project and the folks at Walnut Capital helped to transform that neighborhood, among others, but our friends, Nate Cunningham and Matthew Ciccone - Matthew sort of envisioning that project ...   Josh Lavrinc: A former YMCA associated with a church across the street; had been sort of mid-block. Not a hard corner. Not an easy site to see, and certainly, at that time, not a neighborhood where you thought about hospitality assets, nor a brand, in Ace, that lenders still to this day think about wanting to see a major franchise and the loyalty customer base of that franchise brought to bear. Difficult to do boutique hotel financing in this neighborhood, mid-block, in the conversion of a former YMCA, but it turned out beautifully. It has been a social magnet for that neighborhood and certainly part of the recovery, I think [cross talk]    Eve Picker: So that's what-   Josh Lavrinc: Interestingly enough, another- Oh, go ahead, Eve.   Eve Picker: No, you go ahead.   Josh Lavrinc: Interestingly enough, at that time, we also arranged senior financing, or I should say bridge financing, with a fund called the Strategic Investment Fund, which I now manage through our company, Callay Capital - a third fund in our portfolio of funds that we manage. At that time, we were doing servicing for this fund and had helped with origination. We weren't formerly the fund manager, we were just a particular service provider, but it was a good fit for that mission.   Josh Lavrinc: That fund now has recently changed its mission a bit but was originally formed in the '90s to revitalize downtown Pittsburgh in the wake of the collapse of the steel industry. I should say not just downtown Pittsburgh, but also industrial reparation of the river valleys, where so much steel job loss actually was experienced. The Strategic Investment Fund's intent was to create economic development - primarily its focus - in those river valleys, but also to revitalize housing and make a vibrant downtown community in the Pittsburgh CBD, in particular. It was very active in financing residential, retail, some hospitality, and a lot of commercial in the region, but focused on those two strategies.   Josh Lavrinc: Again, subordinate financing, taking aggressive pieces of the capital stack that were unable to be financed by conventional lenders - second, third mortgages, bridge loans, those kind of financing. We now manage that. The strategy is shifting a bit. We're looking at- now that downtown Pittsburgh has essentially become revitalized, although, perhaps not at 100 percent, it's drastically different than it was even 20 years ago. The mission now is to try and spread that growth into other neighborhoods that have more challenges for resources and try and help those more challenged communities. There's also a sub-mission to assist with the affordable housing crisis that we have nationally and trying to create affordable housing. We're looking at affordable housing in well-resourced communities, as well as lesser-resource communities [cross talk] In the last-   Eve Picker: No, you go ahead. Go ahead.   Josh Lavrinc: I was just going to say the last fund that we're managing currently, as an active fund, is the Power of 32 Site Development Fund. This was a fund in 2014 that we raised to assist in creating shovel-ready sites for our region to promote a land development and attract companies from across the globe to locate here in our region and create jobs.   Josh Lavrinc: It's called the Power of 32, because there was a larger think-tank initiative trying to promote the greater Pittsburgh region, identifying with four states: Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania - 32 counties in those states - and really community development, broadly - rails to trails, and venture capital, and site development. A bunch of initiatives were discussed, and we were one of those initiatives was to do the site development and we were chosen as the fund manager and helped to raise and implement that fund. It's been successful to date. We've raised about $50 million and have ... We've done about $25 million of projects right now, and we're continuing that investment.   Eve Picker: That, in itself, is a huge body of work, but I know you're squarely involved in socially responsible real estate and finance in Pittsburgh, but I also know that you are working on your own real estate development projects. You and I have partnered to try and raise money for Opportunity Zone real estate, which I'd love us to talk about and the difficulties around that entire tax law and how it's playing out. Do you want to talk about that?   Josh Lavrinc: Yes, absolutely. That's the fund that has not been named yet-   Eve Picker: That's right.   Josh Lavrinc: and we are ... Eve and I have been actively involved since the tax cuts and JOBS Act of 2017 came out. In the wake of the announcement of the designated Opportunity Zones in April of 2018, or March of 2018, we've been actively monitoring this potential huge impact game-changer for socially responsible investment and impact investment. Maybe I'll unpack that a little bit and just-   Eve Picker: I think that's a great idea.   Josh Lavrinc: -how it's set up.   Eve Picker: I was going to suggest that, yep.   Josh Lavrinc: When we talk about impact investment or social responsibility and investment, these all sort of have a categorical place, I think, in my mind, around certain missions. I think any time we're talking about investment funds, there's obviously a financial mission, but when we talk about socially responsible or impact investments, we're coupling financial investment, without trying to compromise it, with some social mission and likely environmental; which might be part of social, but I would break out as a third category. So, financial, social and environmental missions; social sometimes is referred to as community.   Josh Lavrinc: I think that community development should and does occur in all communities. Most of the time, when we talk about community development, we're talking about low-income communities and trying to help the communities with less resources, but really, there can be good community, positive community development. For instance, we're pursuing right now an affordable housing project in Pittsburgh's Strip District, which is a neighborhood that's on fire for job growth, and retail development, and hospitality resources, adjacent to the CBD, and multi-family apartment, market-rate apartments, condominiums, office. All of the commercial real estate products are well represented there, but not affordable housing.   Eve Picker: In other words, it's gentrifying very, very quickly.   Josh Lavrinc: Yes, and I think it was a fairly low population community to begin with, because it's primarily industrial in nature, right? [cross talk]   Eve Picker: It was. That's correct. That's correct.   Josh Lavrinc: -there are concerns about displacement and gentrification throughout all of these conversations about responsible community development, but here's a community that maybe did not have a large, low-income population, and we need to try and develop it in a balanced manner and help-   Eve Picker: That's correct.   Josh Lavrinc: I think a key to creating affordable housing and creating a region, a strong region for all, is in those hot neighborhoods to try and remember the responsible uses, as well. We're working on a project that I hope we'll be closing on later this summer to create a significant amount of affordable units in that neighborhood. A slight digression there from our categorical discussion of impact investment.   Josh Lavrinc: Just one example of community development, though, is affordable housing, and most of the time, that market, whenever we have a use that doesn't bring in rents that are sufficient to motivate investors on their own - hence the crisis we're in, where we don't have enough supply because there's not enough financial investment incentive to attract investors and developers to create that product - there's some subsidy or incentives. And in this case of affordable housing, obviously, there's the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, and those-   Eve Picker: Well, I've got to interject here. You have said a couple of things now that I think are absolutely key. That is that there's not enough financial incentive; that we're trying to do socially responsible projects, while at the same time keeping the financial returns the same. That, I think, is the crux of the issue. I think that perhaps we've all gotten a little bit too greedy, but it isn't- it isn't always possible to keep the financial return in the 20-to 25-percent internal rate of return arena for a project that is socially responsible. Yet you and I have not ... I think we both don't believe that we have investors really ready to invest for less. They really want both. Am I right? They want the financial returns, and they want [cross talk]   Josh Lavrinc: Yeah, they do. They do [cross talk] and it's tough to deliver both. It's tough to deliver both, especially when you get into ... When you get into a structured product like the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, you've got rent restrictions - for good reasons - that go on for sometimes upwards of 20 years. That's difficult to project a financial return on sort of ... All real estate is perhaps a depreciating asset, other than their land value, that require repair and reinvestment over time. If you have a challenged underlying land value because it's in a less-resourced community, you have a restriction on the income potential of that property, it really becomes a very specialized, niche investment opportunity [cross talk] like most other investments.   Eve Picker: -yeah, because the asset value can't increase over time because it's restricted. Typically, investors- or often investors are looking for some return over the years and then some share the upside at the end, when the project is sold. But the upside on an asset, on a building that has been restricted, is just not going to be there.   Josh Lavrinc: That's right. Sometimes, it is. Obviously, on the margins, there are exceptions. When you have something in a rent-restricted unit to a project in a rapidly, or even not rapidly, but a neighborhood that changes over the course of 20 years and becomes very valuable at the end and you lift the restrictions. That's no longer developed for the same mission. That then, perhaps ... The value becomes in converting that to another use. I think the silver lining to all of this, interestingly ... How do we reconcile financial return and investment? You hit the nail on the head. There requires some compromise, in the absence of other incentives. I think the Opportunity Zone program or incentive is potentially one of the solutions that can really spur new impact investment in communities. The reason I say that- oh, go ahead.   Eve Picker: No, I was going to say for our listeners who don't know what Opportunity Zones are, they were introduced as part of the 2017 JOBS and Tax Act. I think there are over 8,000 of them. Am I right, Josh? 8,000 [cross talk]   Josh Lavrinc: -25 percent of all eligible low-income census tracts in the United States were delegated to the state level to be selected by the chief executives in each of those states, and then they designated 25 percent of those. It is a large number, as you said, Eve, across the country. There has been a lot of focus on this program, about whether it's really a program. I've used that word a couple of times. It's an incentive, for sure, but it is different than a tax-credit program or other incentive program that we've seen in the past in that only those with capital gains can directly benefit by investing into an Opportunity Zone - one of these designated low-income census tracts.   Josh Lavrinc: The benefit is in a short-term deferral of a prior capital gain. If, meeting the qualifications, you can maintain that capital gains investment in an Opportunity Zone for a whole period exceeding 10 years - a long-term investment -then you would receive a step up in basis for that capital gains that was reinvested into a new investment to the fair market value of that investment at the end of that hold period [cross talk] has the potential for tax exemption, essentially.   Eve Picker: That's correct. I think it's actually a great program. It could be a great program. It has a couple of really, I think, serious flaws, and it's inequitable in the fact that only someone with capital gains can really take advantage of it. That already skews it towards wealthy investors. Secondly, in the selection of these census tracts, one can only imagine how much politics was involved, because you and I know that the tracks that were selected in Pittsburgh, particularly difficult, and they were selected for the right reasons, because those really need the most investment. But other states didn't really think about it that way, or other cities. They selected tracts that already had investment and they thought they could attract more dollars to. Even the selection of the census tracts has been inequitable. I don't know what you think about that, Josh, but ...?   Josh Lavrinc: Yeah, I think it may have been equitable in that everyone every state was participating, and every leadership group had discretion to choose the census tracts that made sense for their for their states. But when you do things equitably, it doesn't necessarily always result in an equitable distribution of resources after that. I think, unfortunately, there will be ... With our real estate lens, thinking about it in a real estate investment perspective, over the past 18 months, as we have ... When I say 'we,' I mean all of us; all of the thought leaders on the investment, accountants, lawyers, investment professionals coming together, talking about Opportunity Zones.   Josh Lavrinc: There has been concern about how will this come about? What is the financial impact of this incentive? Will it really be a game-changing flow of capital to all the Opportunity Zones? Obviously, I left out, in that conversation with the communities and economic development trust professionals across the country, who are hoping that this is a new resource to help revitalize their communities. There is certainly, when looked out through the lens of investment capital, in projects out, real estate projects out, there will be some lowest common denominator that attracts capital to the primary market.   Josh Lavrinc: Rather than changing a capital flow from Silicon Valley to Pittsburgh, which may have been the original intent of the program, and I think was, based on the political leadership that have spoken about it, if there are qualified Opportunity Zones, designated Opportunity Zones in Silicon Valley, in New York, in L.A., then those folks that are already investing in those communities don't have to look very far to find another opportunities. In fact, West Hollywood, and East Palo Alto, and portions of New York City - of course, they have low-income communities and have been designated Opportunity Zones..   Josh Lavrinc: If there's a competition among Opportunity Zones across the country for limited dollars, there will not- the problem necessarily won't be solved by the Opportunity Zone designation, itself. But I think, and reflecting on it 18 months in, I think the real change that can come through Opportunity Zones is the operating business incentive. This doesn't just apply to real estate projects. The Opportunity Zone benefit applies to capital gains of any type, with some exceptions - some very nuanced tax exceptions - but operating businesses are squarely within the regulations that have come out from the IRS.   Josh Lavrinc: I think that when we see greater investment in operating businesses ... There are already folks saying that private equity shops looking to invest in venture capital, looking to invest in companies; Company A is located outside an Opportunity Zone. "Why don't you just move down the street to an Opportunity Zone, and we'll make an investment, because it'll be more tax advantaged for us."   Josh Lavrinc: When that flow happens, when we see venture capital, private equity, and investment, and operating businesses start to prefer Opportunity Zones, I think that tide - that's a trend that can occur throughout the Opportunity Zones, not just isolated ... When that happens, we're going to see real businesses relocate, real jobs relocate, real homes relocate. That will attract more jobs, more retail, more housing, and start to really revitalize a community in a fundamental way that I think we talked about revitalization, which is putting dollars into a community.   Josh Lavrinc: There may be adverse impacts of that, if we don't use those dollars responsibly by providing for affordable housing in those communities, along- maintaining affordable housing at a high quality, for instance, as a community is revitalizing, but hopefully, those jobs that are moving down the street initially ... Although the people in those jobs may or may not have come from the target Opportunity Zone community, new jobs that are attracted to that new company, whether they are community goods and services, like retail, or strategically associated companies with the original company that moved, or some other service in the community that has more demand, those hopefully will be employing folks in the community, and is such that, hopefully, the gentrification that happens is inclusive and participatory, so that we're not seeing a series of outsiders coming into this community alone, but that there is a strengthening of the existing community that may not touch and concern every person.   Josh Lavrinc: Therefore, there's a need to make sure we're thinking about responsible community development goals, like affordable housing and investing in social services. That program, creating new businesses in an Opportunity Zone and the downstream impact of a new business locating in a community, I think, is the opportunity to bring together financial return and impact investment, social responsibility, because we'll then [cross talk]   Eve Picker: -where does that leave real estate in the equation?   Josh Lavrinc: That's the downstream effect. I think that it only takes one company moving into East Liberty, for instance - Duolingo moving into East Liberty; Google moving into East Liberty - to suddenly revitalize that community. There are much more real estate- many more real estate projects taking place in that community as a result of those business moves..   Josh Lavrinc: If we can continue to see more businesses move into Opportunity Zones that will beget more real estate investment, and folks that say, "We're going to invest in this community ... We wouldn't have otherwise, because we were worried about compromising our financial return." But then, when we combine the incentives for capital gains with the Opportunity Zone incentive with the potential transformation of this community over 10 years - transformation meaning revitalization; hopefully, appreciation - now we have a large enough financial return to incentivize us to invest and in this particular community. That's what we've been trying to accomplish all along.   Josh Lavrinc: Obviously, there is place-based responsibility. Just investing in a low-income community is helpful, but it's also subject-based, use-based responsibility. What are we building in that area? We're building commercial real estate to support jobs. That's a that's a version of social responsibility. If we're doing it to support housing, that's a version. Obviously, we want to consider the environmental impact, which I've kind of left out of this conversation about financial incentives and social responsibility. All of those things can be serviced. We'll still have, however, a need for some segment of the market to support the under-resourced portion of the community through other affordable housing, or social services. I think [cross talk] role of responsible tax management and those kind of things for the governing bodies, in addition to charitable and private efforts.   Eve Picker: But also, there's people in the community who want to invest, as you know, right? I do believe that equity crowdfunding can play a huge role in the revitalization of communities, because now, if you have a business that moves in, or a building that is revitalized, the people in that neighborhood can actually invest in it. That's a really important piece of building wealth within a community for the community, not just making it better for the community and leaving them on the outside. Difficult, as you know.   Josh Lavrinc: I think that's a great point that the community, itself, with new financial tools and e-commerce, information-age tools, like crowdfunding and the regulatory predicates of crowdfunding that you've harnessed with Small Change, bringing not just capital into these communities for financially viable projects, but also on tapping neighbors, and neighbors, perhaps in a colloquial sense, that might be stretching across the globe that are motivated about something that compromises financial return in order to accomplish impact. That's a real experiment with social capital [cross talk] can be accomplished. That story hasn't been told yet, entirely.   Eve Picker: In my time in Pittsburgh, the thing that has had the biggest impact on me is - this is true throughout the Rust Belt, I think. I'm not sure about other cities, but certainly many places I've been - how much people love the cities they live in, and how much they want to be engaged in making them better. It's a pretty astounding phenomenon..   Eve Picker: Give them an opportunity to invest $500, $1,000, $2,000, or whatever, in the place they live, rather than put it in a mutual fund, where they don't know where it's going to go, that circulates money locally, and it gives them an opportunity to share in making that place better. It's an amazing opportunity. Now we just have to educate investors, right, Josh?   Josh Lavrinc: Of course. Yeah, that's right. Not to mention the bite-sized piece of the investment that you're talking about. The other power of this is we would all like to own the local restaurant, or the local general store, or name any other part of the community that you utilize and would like to support or own. Without a large amount of resources, it's practically very difficult to accomplish that.   Josh Lavrinc: This allows, through fractional ownership at very humble investment levels, the opportunity to make a change and invest in something that ... Whether it's financially motivated, or more community motivated, depending on the mission of that particular project or fund, crowdfunding certainly is a powerful tool to try and unlock investment and change for the masses.   Eve Picker: Yeah. Moving away from Opportunity Zones, what other current trends in real estate development are you seeing that you think are really important for the future of our cities?   Josh Lavrinc: I think I would focus on the word 'community.' What  by that is I think we're defining the way - in particular, in cities and urban environments - the way people come together, and live, work, and play. Those are terms popularized by commercial real estate development to try and identify or put a friendly face around mixed-use projects and make them simple to understand, but fundamentally, there is a big social change there of trying to make productive and as accessible a community as possible.   Josh Lavrinc: I was listening recently to another podcast with the co-founder of WeWork, talking about their perspective on co-working, how that came out of a desire to create community. I'm involved with a co-working company here, locally, called The Beauty Shop, in Pittsburgh, where we're trying to develop similar communities, but growing that community outside of just an office space. Their first thought, back right around of the time the financial crisis, was that people working in isolated environments can be more productive, more happy, more engaged, and feel more appreciated and better-served by those around them that are similarly motivated; similarly making sacrifices for their businesses, if they are put together in a community.   Josh Lavrinc: When you combine that and expand that into residential real estate, can those people perhaps live in environments where they feel more supported and have more of a social fabric? I think this comes along with trends on isolationism and depression that are plaguing our country these days. Those are growing problems for our nation. This is one way to tackle that social problem is bringing together community.   Josh Lavrinc: Obviously, it can extend into other parts of the community, where instead of spending time isolated, commuting to your job, you might be able to create an entire ecosystem around your business, or your apartment, or your entertainment venue, and have that all in one ... Obviously, that's what a city represents [cross talk] extending that community into a broader scale about technology, connectedness, and resource- infrastructure resources in a particular city - all of these things are really the same concept, at a different scale.   Eve Picker: I can't help but think it's the modern-day version of the kibbutz [cross talk]   Josh Lavrinc: Yes, right, and-   Eve Picker: -the kibbutz probably got all of this right a long time ago.   Josh Lavrinc: That communal living is exactly what is perhaps needed to get people back, attached, especially in the age of digital devices and the connected-with-ness we have, and yet, perhaps, the over-connectivity that's coming with that, without having perhaps enough emotional and human support with that connectivity. Definitely, it's funny [cross talk]   Eve Picker: It's also affordability, because if you share resources, whether it's a shared kitchen or whatever it is, then your living costs are going to go down. I think that's also part of the reason why co-housing options are being explored.   Josh Lavrinc: That's right. You're right, when we talk about the impact of an urban environment, or it doesn't necessarily have to occur just in an urban environment, the community, generally, there are social health and well-being aspects. There are business aspects, and there are certainly affordable aspects of the development that can be brought to bear as a result of the sharing of a common amenity base and spreading those costs across many uses.   Josh Lavrinc: That's one of the focuses of my current development [audio cuts] in addition to fund management and the structured finance consulting, new markets, tax credits, historic tax credits that I work on in my primary business, I also spend a lot of time on commercial real estate development; in particular, recently, anchored by coworking, but has molded that into a strategy around community, where we are looking at secondary and tertiary cities, not primary markets, to try and create these full-scale communities in urban environments. Although I think suburban environments are a huge untapped market, as well, to try and bring together a greater sense of community and all of those benefits that come with it - the social, the financial and the affordability.   Eve Picker: Probably in suburban markets, people are even more isolated.   Josh Lavrinc: Exactly, exactly. When we talk about commute times and disparate destinations for live, work, and play, bring those things together into a town center, into a real Main Street ... Revitalizing the main street. Obviously, there are a lot of Main Streets programs across the United States. It's a very similar theme for community development. But bringing an urban spin to it, with a responsible amount of density and set of uses, I think has a lot of power, and I think we'll see a lot of that coming up.   Josh Lavrinc: Hopefully, we'll see that happening in Opportunity Zones. I think if we can bring together Opportunity Zone development and businesses locating in those Opportunity Zones and then try to develop more community, then we'll see some pretty significant change in the next decade of real estate, business, and real community development conspiring together to implement improvement or accomplish improvement.   Eve Picker: Given all of this, where do you think the future of real estate impact investing lies?   Josh Lavrinc: Well, I think that it probably is the future. I think that the days of solely focusing on financial returns are probably starting to narrow, and it seems that the aware, responsible person is going to make more decisions. As we provide more information and more connectivity to individuals to not only their investments, but to the world around them, and their neighbors, and the people in the communities around them, they're going to make more conscious decisions to better ... To increase their efforts to deploy what investment funds they have into those things that help people around them and the environment around them.   Josh Lavrinc: Whether it's crowdfunding, whether it's an Opportunity Zone fund, whether it's a tax credit incentive, there are ... We are seeing a growth in responsible investment, in mission-based investment, and for good reason, because, fundamentally, we aren't robots. We're humans, and we have a moral compass, and we have emotion, and emotional intelligence that directs our activities to things that we favor for reasons other than purely financial. The closer we can get to combining financial return - which is almost a third-party neutral arbiter, selecting return responsibly for our good of our income and wealth in the future - if we can start to align that financial return, even more strongly than just the Opportunity Zone, with responsible investment, I think I think we'll get there.   Eve Picker: We have, in fact, lived through the era of green-washing, and we're heading into the era of good-washing, right?   Josh Lavrinc: Yeah, that's an interesting way ... Hopefully, it's not washing at all, but you're right. You're right that there's been popularization, perhaps over-popularization and overuse of terms around, for instance, green. I think we're getting into a period, an enlightenment, if you will, where individuals are receiving information about their investments, receiving information about what's happening in the world around them, and then are given opportunities to vote with their own dollars in projects that have real meaning to them and to the people around them that they care about.   Eve Picker: I have three sign-off questions for you that I ask everyone. I'm wondering what your answers are going to be. The first one is what's the one thing that makes a real estate project impactful to you?   Josh Lavrinc: The impact for me, although I skew towards economic development, I would say it's serving the people. Keying in on that community that we have spoken about here, we could easily talk about the environmental crisis that we face as a globe. We could talk about the lack of social services and the need in our community for the poor. But I think that cutting across all of those for impact, in my mind, is assessing whether a project is responsibly targeting its community.   Josh Lavrinc: I'm not inventing anything new with that response. When you think about the New Markets Tax Credit program and what community development enterprises across the country look at, when they're assessing projects, one of the first questions they ask are what are the community's plans? Does the community have a development plan? Is there community support for a proposed project, prior to awarding a subsidy or incentive? I think there's really good wisdom in that practice. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're getting the best project, or necessarily a particular outcome, but it does mean that you're considering what that community's needs are and trying to address it responsibly. That's how I would answer that.   Eve Picker: The second question - other than by raising money, how do you think crowdfunding might benefit the impact real estate developer?   Josh Lavrinc: Well [cross talk] obviously-   Eve Picker: These are not trick questions.   Josh Lavrinc: No, no, I think ... Obviously, I think, when we think about influencers, and social media, and the power of marketing in our current environment, crowdfunding has a way of making something more popular, more highlighted, and can be a great marketing tool, and perhaps a vote of confidence from the community. It might be a third party, whether those people are local to the community or outside, it's a third-party validation of whether this investment is responsible, or desirable for whatever- depending on the purpose of the crowdfunded group, that it's meeting their mission. I think there could be strong marketing efforts as a result of the crowdfunded opportunity, but I'm sure there are a couple of other [cross talk]   Eve Picker: -in effect, a community engagement tool.   Josh Lavrinc: That's right.   Eve Picker: Yeah, yeah. Final question - what one thing in real estate development do you think would improve ... I'm going to ask that question again. How do you think real estate development in the US could be improved by just one thing?   Josh Lavrinc: I think that if we could ... We can work hard to tie together our incentives, make sure they are aligned. We have a lot of ... All of the real estate industry is motivated fundamentally by financial return. We have folks whose livelihood is based on their development project, their construction project, their leasing of the project. That is a powerful tool to impact activity, to create activity financially, for each one of us.   Josh Lavrinc: The more we can align incentives, like the Opportunity Zone, to create the outcomes we want and make sure that those incentives are narrowly tailored to really accomplish what we want ... For instance, I think there are some great things about the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, which is an area I don't practice a lot in - although we're investing in affordable housing, regionally, that's not a national practice that I participate in - I think that we see the competition over the program; the structure of a program that tries to compensate with fees, given the lack of value creation. Those fees then create outsized projects that maybe are more expensive than they need to be, or more inefficient than they need to be.   Josh Lavrinc: If we can go back and fix programs to address the value equation differently and think about the model we're setting up and the downstream impact of that model to be more efficient and more effective for our goals, I think that would have perhaps the most profound effect, because you're not ... Instead of trying to change the fundamental capitalistic income-driven goal of a professional, which I don't think we can change - other than to redirect it through incentives - and if we can align those incentives with what we think currently are the crises facing our country, which are probably the social isolation, the isolation of resources, so that everyone has access to good education, and training, and jobs, and economic advancement of themselves, and healthcare, and all the rest of those basic needs, and hopefully in a way that's aligned responsibly for the environment, long term ... We have a lot of great rapid change happening there, obviously, with autonomous vehicles and renewable energy. The more we can align these programs into creating a community that's hitting on all cylinders across both of those major programmatic missions, I think that the better our commercial real estate market will be, the better our professionals will be in accomplishing those goals and the end result for the community.   Eve Picker: Yes. Agreed. Well, Josh, thank you very much for talking with me today. I really enjoyed our conversation, and I'm sure we'll be talking again soon. Thanks so much-   Josh Lavrinc: I did as well. Thank you very much, Eve.   Eve Picker: Bye.   Eve Picker: That was Josh Lavrinc. Today, I learned that the capital markets can be squarely directed at impact investing. There are some large and strategic funds in Pittsburgh that have been doing this for quite a while now. Impact investing in real estate spans the spectrum from tiny projects, some of which we've listed on Small Change, to large funds that focus solely on impact.   Eve Picker: You can find out more about impact real estate investing and access the show notes for today's episode at my website, EvePicker.com. While you're there, sign up for my newsletter to find out more about how to make money in real estate while building better cities. Thank you so much for spending your time with me today, and thank you, Josh, for sharing your thoughts with us. We'll talk again soon, but for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.  

North Allegheny High School Senior, Futen Wang, with a commentary on questions he gets asked about his ethnicity, East Liberty teen, Windafire, shares an original song, and youth philanthropy interns from the Community Foundation of Westmoreland County with a documentary on the misperceptions some have about community colleges.   Background Music:"Maccary Bay" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

  Empower By Example    Episode 2 - Ashley Moorefield, Serenity Living Transitional Home   https://www.slth.org           Ashley and Shawn Moorefield started a mentorship program in 2007 that intentionally brought youth from their community together to work on homework and talk about difficulties these young people were facing in school and throughout their community.  Over time the Moorefields discovered that some of the young people they served were at risk for homelessness.  Through a CRAZY (Ashley’s words, not mine) time of moving out of their own house and relocating her own family with young children in order to house these young people into their family’s home, their official non profit was born.           SLTH is a transitional home was founded in 2017 for homeless girls and young women who are transitioning out of foster care located in East Liberty, Pittsburgh.  They serve ages 18-23 because Ashley found that most programs serve youth under the age of 18, or adults who have a legal situation where they have been mandated to a program through the courts.  The young women can stay at SLTH for up to a year and their plans for achieving sustainable, well rounded lives.         Ashley and Shawn have integrated service into their family’s every day reality.  Her son creates care packages for the homeless, and he reaches out to the community for donations for SJ Cares.  His little sister includes hand drawn pictures in the care packages.  We have a frank conversation about the difficulty explaining topics like homelessness to young children and how to involve them in service projects.           As a follow up to Serenity Living’s fundraising gala on September 14th, The Rock Family Foundation is MATCHING all donations through 2019 up to $2,000.  Donate here and make your dollar work harder!  https://slth.networkforgood.com/projects/80184-laura-rock-s-fundraiser         Open call for community connections!!  Does your hobby or business promote personal growth?  Would you be interested in facilitating a session with Serenity Living?  You could teach these young people how to change the oil on a car, how to read a credit report or how to extreme coupon!  If you have a passion, please reach out to see if it is a match with this group.             FB for Serenity Living: https://www.facebook.com/TheSerenityHouse/       FB group for SJ Cares: https://www.facebook.com/Sj-Cares-402406497194647/         Music by Buscrates (https://www.instagram.com/buscrates/?hl=de)

What’s the Difference Between Oregano and Marjoram? If you've grown both, you know they look quite similar and they are often confused for one another. But, when it comes to flavor and taste, it is easy to tell them apart.   Oregano tends to be earthy, pungent, and spicy. It can easily overpower the other flavors in a dish. To subdue the pungency, cooks recommend using the dried form of oregano.   On the other hand, marjoram is more mild. Use that alliteration to help you remember, Mild Marjoram. Marjoram’s flavor is more refined; it's floral and woodsy. Because marjoram is sweeter and milder, chefs recommend using fresh marjoram instead of dried marjoram for cooking.   Brevities #OTD It's the birthday of the naturalist, botanist, ornithologist, prizewinning horticulturist, painter, archaeologist, historian, author of six books and a proud daughter of the great state of Louisiana: Caroline Dormon.  Her friends called her "Carrie." Carrie was a tiny woman;  she was also a powerhouse; she formed her own opinions and ideas about the natural world and she always wore dresses; she thought pants were quite scandalous.  Carrie was born at her family's summer home called Briarwood. In the 1920's at Briarwood, Carrie built a writing cabin she called Three Pines because of the trio of tall pines around it. Carrie told her friends it was a place for daydreams. In the 1950's, a second cabin was built at Briarwood. Carrie liked to take the screens off the windows every spring so wrens could build nests inside.  At Briarwood, Carrie installed trails through the woods, planted hundreds of plants and she even installed a reflecting pool for "Grandpappy" - her favorite tree on the property. Grandpappy is a longleaf pine and he's still alive today. Grandpappy is estimated to be over 300 years old. There's a story about Grandpappy that Carrie used to share with visitors. Once a forester wanted to "core" Grandpappy to determine a more exact age for the tree.  Carrie stopped him and said, "It's none of your business how old Grandpappy is, or how old I am for that matter."     #OTD   On this day in 1920, John Macoun, one of Canada's leading botanists, passed away. He was 90 years old. Here's a little story he shared about Macoun's early life, growing up in Ireland: "We had a garden well fenced in, she encouraged us to spend our idle time in it... I seemed to prefer taking an old knife and going out to the fields and digging up flowers and bringing them in and making a flower garden of my own. I only remember primroses and the wild hyacinth.   Another characteristic was the power of seeing. I could find more strawberries and more birds' nests ... than any other boy."   After arriving in Canada, Macoun had started out as a farmer. In 1856, he became a school teacher; partly to nourish his nearly "obsessive" interest in botany, but also to find a more balanced life. Macoun wrote that before teaching, "I never had had more than one holiday in the year and that was Christmas Day. [My brother] Frederick and I might take a day's fishing in the summer, but an eight-mile walk and scrambling along the river was not very restful." Within five years, Macoun had begun regular correspondence with prominent botanists like Asa Gray and Sir William Hooker. In Macoun's autobiography, there are many touching passages about his love of botany. Here's a little glimpse into how he cultivated his own understanding of plants: "I would take a common species of roadside or garden plant of which I knew the name and then immediately endeavor to work out its correct name from the classification. The Mullein was the species that I took first. I found it more difficult than I had thought on account of its long and short stamens, but I soon came to understand the arrangement of the stamens and pistils so well that most plants could be classified by their form alone." Once, Macoun was approached by his future father-in-law, who was a bit skeptical of Macoun's prospects. Macoun wrote, " Simon Terrill, who was a well-known Quaker in that district, ... found me with a plant in my hand and said : "John, what dost thee ever expect to make out of the study of botany? I told him that I did not know but that it gave me a great deal of pleasure."     Unearthed Words Flowers reflect the human search for meaning.  Does not each of us, no matter how our life has gone, ache to have a life as beautiful and true to itself as that of a flower? Philip Moffitt       Today's book recommendation: The Wild Garden by William Robinson Rick Darke updated this garden classic.  At the time when Robinson first published the book, his natural vision for gardens was considered revolutionary. Today, we regard it as standard gardening. In addition to the complete original text and illustrations from the 1895 edition, this expanded edition includes  material from Rick Darke the esteemed photographer and landscape consultant. Like Robinson, Darke seeks to show wild gardening in a modern context. The result is even more inspiration for today's wild gardens.     Today's Garden Chore Schedule some time to visit public gardens. This is a great activity to help inspire you to make some garden changes. And, if you're on vacation, make sure to include some public gardens.     Something Sweet  Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart   Today is the birthday of Landscape Architect Robert Fenton who was born in 1933.  Fenton was a Harvard grad and he settled down in Pennsylvania. While researching Fenton, it was impossible to avoid all the newspaper articles that covered a disagreement Fenton had with the city of Pittsburgh.   In 1965, Fenton was a young, 32-year-old Landscape Architect with an office at 6010 Centre Avenue. Newspaper accounts said he had wanted to, "spruce up what he called a drab neighborhood in the East Liberty section." After trying for weeks to get permission from the City Forester Earl Blankenship, Fenton went ahead and planted the tree. Fenton told reporters that planting the tree was in line with President Johnson's thinking on beautification and that, "If you try to get anything doen through the city you get, "no, no, no." So we decided to break up the sidewalk and put it in... hoping no one would notice. Unfortunately, the installation accidentally took out a parking meter. Newspaper accounts shared that, "In the dead of night, Fenton brought in a high lift, a 15-ton truck and five men. The tree he had selected was a beauteous 25-foot ash with a five-inch base and it cost Fenton $110 (in 1965). The city departments took umbrage at Fenton's actions.  After two weeks of discussions, the City Attorney David Stahl said the tree was cut down and hauled away by City Forester Earl Blankenship in the middle of the night. Fenton came to work and was shocked to discover the tree gone; cut down to the ground. Just days earlier, Fenton had told town reporters that,  "I think it's going to be so difficult to remove the tree that the city will let it stay and merely warn me not to let it happen again." Newspaper accounts of this story were super punny: Tree Goes, City Barks Citizen on a Limb Poetic Tale of a Tree Somehow Lacks Meter A Tree Grew In...Violation 'Woodman Spare That Tree' Cry of Architect Falls on Deaf Ears City Thinks Meter Lovelier Than Tree Want Meter There and No Shady Deal Today, if you look at the same spot on Google Earth, whaddya know? There's a tree growing in front of the building... but no meter.   Thanks for listening to the daily gardener, and remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

“I got into art-making because I want show the different ways that people show up in the world, and to represent voices that are often not heard,” says janera solomon, executive director of the Kelly Strayhorn Theater. That aim has never been needed more than now, as her neighborhood grapples with rapid change and the risk of cultural erasure.   In the past decade, Pittsburgh’s historic East Liberty community has seen big-name tech companies set up shop in former warehouses, heated controversies ignited about affordable housing, and black-owned businesses priced out of their long-time locations. Steady through it all has been janera and the Kelly Strayhorn Theater, named for native sons/entertainment legends Gene Kelly and Billy Strayhorn.   In addition to her passion for bringing world-class art to her city and giving agency to often underrepresented voices, janera champions a belief in the power of art to address the big issues of our day.    “If we’re going to make the case that our art – and our arts organizations - are important, they have to be more important than just for art’s sake,” says janera. “We have a responsibility to show up for all of the issues that are impacting our communities, and to bring all of our creativity, imagination and rigor to the table.”   Hear janera explain the role her immigration story plays in her artistic vision, the three things she believes today’s art world must consider, and how her mom taught her to look fear in the eye – all in this episode of “We Can Be.”   “We Can Be” is hosted by The Heinz Endowments President Grant Oliphant, and produced by the Endowments and Treehouse Media. Theme music by Josh Slifkin, with incidental music by Giuseppe Capolupo. Guest image by Josh Franzos. Guest inquiries: Scott Roller at sroller@heinz.org. 

“THERE ARE BLACK PEOPLE IN THE FUTURE," in cut-out white letters on the black background of a steel billboard, stood high above Pittsburgh’s rapidly changing East Liberty neighborhood last spring – and brought national acclaim to interdisciplinary artist and cultural producer Alisha Wormsley.   But that science fiction-inspired contribution to The Last Billboard art project – and the controversy its removal sparked – is but one brush stroke in an artistic career that has spanned nearly two decades and numerous continents.   “I don’t consider myself an activist,” Alisha says, “but my art is active.” It is indeed active – and vibrant – weaving family history, an archeologist’s sensibility, and a love of sci-fi into photographic, film, mural, performance and multi-dimensional works of art.   Learn how a Zora Neale Hurston book about the religious experience of post-emancipation African Americans, her brother’s Marvel comic obsession, and “The Walking Dead” AMC television show have all influenced the smart, moving, beautiful, and absolutely vital art of Alisha Wormsley.     “We Can Be” is hosted by The Heinz Endowments President Grant Oliphant, and produced by the Endowments and Treehouse Media. Theme music by Josh Slifkin; incidental music by Giuseppe Capolupo. Guest image by Josh Franzos. Billboard image: thelastbillboard.com

Ah, We're Doomed... Today's topics include: ...and a guy from East Liberty is the latest sign that the end is near. Billy Porter showed up to the Oscars last night wearing a dress - and instead if being laughed at, he was applauded; next, D.C. McAllister (senior columnist for The Federalist, follow her on Twitter @McAllisterDen) joins the show to discuss a recent article she wrote, which detailed a ruling in Texas where a Judge found the 'men only military draft' as being 'unconstitutional'; and finally, Dr. Quentin Van Meter (Pediatric Endocrinologist, American College of Pediatricians) is here to weigh-in with his expert opinion on a story out of CT, where two high school female transgender students competed as female athletes in a track championship, placing in first and second place.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

#120 Meditation With Tim Krupar for 2019 Hey everyone! We are back for 2019. I hope everyone's 2018 and holiday season was wonderful, peaceful, and full of family and friends. My husband had the best idea to start off 2019 with some well wishes and a calm mind for the universe. You all know I love floating, and a good meditation that I could share with my listeners seemed to be the most logical way to achieve this. Enter Tim Krupar from Sit and Breathe Pittsburgh. Tim teaches meditate and studies with Buddhist monks here in Pittsburgh. He was kind enough to come on the show to answer some questions about starting your own practice, and all the different styles of meditation available. At the end of the show I hope you will join us in the 20 minute guided meditation that he orchestrated for us. He has a group that meets every Monday for meditation at the Carnegie Library in East Liberty at 6:15 on Floor 2, room 2. I hope I will see some of you there this year :) This guided meditation is perfect for anyone who has been practicing for 50 years, 5, or has never even tried it. I have released this episode in two forms. One as just the meditation for future use anytime needs it, and two with the added dialogue and questions I asked Tim, along with my reflections from 2018. Let's start off 2019 on a good foot everyone! This episode is sponsored by Levity. Pittsburgh's premiere sensory deprivation experience in floating. All listeners get $5 with code "Marta" Take some time for yourself to calm your body and mind at Levity.

On this episode, I sit down with Alisha Wormsley, an artist based in Pittsburgh who creates photos, sculpture, sound, and time-based work based on collective memory and the synchronicity of time periods. I first came to know of Alisha through her Homewood Residency program, but more recently Alisha gained attention for one of her text-based work. To give a bit of background, Alisha was invited to exhibit a text for The Last Billboard, a project founded by the artist Jon Rubin who offered a rotating cast of artists a chance to present text on a billboard. The billboard resides in East Liberty, a quickly gentrifying neighborhood with new neighbors that include Google and freshly constructed apartment complexes and condos. Alisha presented the text, “There Are Black People In The Future.” People from the neighborhood complained and the property’s landlord removed the text. I’ve attached a Hyperallergic link on the SeeingColor website with more information. I caught up with Alisha right after she finished teaching a class and we get into the origins of the text, her decision to go to grad school, and future plans. The sound quality isn’t the best, so I must apologize for that. I hope you still enjoy this. Links Mentioned: Alisha's Website Alisha's Instagram *Hyperallergic Article on Alisha's Billboard Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture by Ytasha L. Womack Kwobo Ashume: Further Considerations on Afrofuturism Quick History of Conflict Kitchen Follow Seeing Color: Seeing Color Website Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Facebook Twitter Instagram

Well good morning, good afternoon and good evening, wherever you are in the world, hello and welcome to the Saturday 7th July edition of EV News Daily. It’s Martyn Lee here with the news you need to know about electric cars and the move towards sustainable transport.   SHELL WOULD SUPPORT UK BRINGING FORWARD PETROL BAN FROM 2040 You don't need to rewind and play this next sentence back, even you'll think you mis-heard: "The chief executive of Shell, one of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies, has said he would support the UK bringing forward its 2040 ban on new petrol and diesel car sales." says Adam Vaughan in The Guardian: "Ben van Beurden said he welcomed the idea of bringing forward the ban, as it would provide clarity and make it easier for companies like Shell to make investment decisions and also shift consumer attitudes." “If you would bring it forward, obviously that would be welcome. I think the UK will have to go at a much higher speed than the speed the rest of the world can go.”   https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jul/05/shell-would-support-uk-bringing-forward-petrol-ban-from-2040   2019 CHEVROLET BOLT PRODUCTION UP BY 20% "Earlier this year, General Motors announced it planned to increase production of the 2019 Chevrolet Bolt EV electric car later this year. In the automaker’s latest U.S. sales report, GM specified an increase of more than 20 percent" according to Sean at GM Authority: "In the announcement, GM noted demand for the Bolt EV has outstripped supply in the United States, Canada and South Korea. Previously GM Authority reported Bolt EV buyers in Canada face lengthy delays as many wait for cars to arrive at dealerships. Kurt McNeil, U.S. vice president, Sales Operations, says: "The extra production coming online should be enough to help us keep growing global Bolt EV sales [and] rebuild our U.S. dealer inventory"   http://gmauthority.com/blog/2018/07/2019-chevrolet-bolt-to-see-20-percent-production-increase/   TESLA RELEASE FOOTAGE OF MODEL 3 PERFORMANCE DRIFTING ON TRACK Now the first of two internet videos which are basically EV performance porn. The official Tesla twitter account just posted some phone footage of a Model 3 performance yesterday. If you are a reservation holder, this must be so exciting to see. IT's a Model 3 doing donuts and drifting around in circles, rear wheels smoking. I'll hit play now. It's on an unidentified test track and it looks like a lot of fun.   SEAT'S CUPRA ELECTRIC RACING CAR HITS THE TRACK A new video landed from Seat Media Centre on YouTube, it's only 45 seconds but it's full of electric goodness. "Seat's performance brand, Cupra, has tested its 500 kilowatt, 100 per cent electric touring car, inventively named the e-Racer, at a race track for the first time in Zagreb, Croatia" reports Stuff.co.nz: "This was the first time the everything had been integrated and tested together on track, with what Seat call "very positive conclusions. This Cupra e-Racer is the first touring car that complies with the requirements for competing in the new E-TCR (Electric Touring Car Races) series, the first pure-electric, multi-brand touring car championship." Matthias Rabe, Seat vice-president for research and development, says: " "With the Cupra e-Racer we want to bring racing to the next level. We believe we can help reinvent motorsport and achieve success. Motorsport is one of the pillars of Cupra, and we are proud of the team that is making this electric touring racecar possible." A battery pack with 6,072 cells and four engines for a vehicle that accelerates to 100 km/h in slightly more than three seconds. There are four motors, enabling “the CUPRA e-Racer to reach 12,000 revolutions, compared to the 6,500 of a petrol powered race car, and all with a single gear   https://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/105214968/the-power-of-9000-mobile-phones--seats-ev-racer-hits-the-track   DO WOMEN HOLD THE KEYS TO EV TAKE-UP? A new piece of academic research show the largest areas for growth in electric mobility are women and retirees. In fact those markets are untapped. My first reaction was that this was a little sexist, I see loads of women on Twitter posting collection photo's of their Model 3s. But let's continue. "Researchers said highly educated women were an untapped but potentially lucrative market for EVs because they have "greater environmental and fuel efficiency awareness than men" reported by Business Green: "Women generally drive fewer kilometres per day, expect to pay less for their next car and have "considerably less experience" of driving EVs compared to men. They also rank ease of operations, running costs, safety and environmental impact higher in their decision making for buying a new car, making them well suited to EV ownership."   SOFTWARE UPDATE BREATHS NEW LIFE INTO TESLA MODEL X 100D Isn't it great when the car you bought gets better after you've owned it for a while? Yes I'm talking to you, Tesla owners. And I’d love to be talking to more owners from other makers, but not too many think like a Silicon Valley company constantly updating the OS. And now good news for early Model X buyers. I'll let Simon at Teslarati explain more: "In the recently-uploaded video, Brooks, the owner of the YouTube channel, stated that he became aware of the Model X 100D being eligible for an “uncorking” update from the electric car maker through the Tesla forum community. The YouTube host noted that selected Model X 100D vehicles are eligible for the update, depending on the vehicle’s VIN. Upon checking with his contact in Tesla, the drag racing enthusiast was informed that his Model X was indeed eligible for the speed and power update."   https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-x-100d-performance-upgrade-uncorking/   MERCEDES-BENZ A-CLASS PLUG-IN HYBRID TO DEBUT IN 2019 The 2019 Mercedes-Benz A-Class is on track to be sold with a PHEV model for those who need some electric miles. As we know by now, everything electric from Merc will sport a nifty EQ badge on the back. The A-class is in the same space as the eGolf, the Audi A3 e-tron or the new VW I.D. pure BEV. How to do know? Well prototype have been spotted ahead of the Paris Motor Show where insiders say it will be unveiled this September, for a 2019 sale date. For the A-Class my best guess is that being a Mercedes Benz, the ICE wil drive two wheel and an electric motor will drive two more, for AWD, or 4Matic as they'd call it. Plugs Ins are a great gateway drug to electric miles, and after all, we want as many electric miles as possible. Are they optimal? No. Carrying round both engine and battery isn't ideal but with some commutes being on EV only, and buyers getting a taste of it, it's more likely their next car will be a full electric. Plus PHEV's will be very popular in cities…which takes me onto the next story nicely   MAYOR LAUNCHES BID TO REDUCE NUMBER OF MINICABS IN C-CHARGE ZONE In London, "A bid to reduce the “rocketing” number of minicabs circulating within the congestion charge zone was launched today by Mayor Sadiq Khan." according to the Evening Standard: "Tougher emission rules limiting the type of private hire vehicles able to claim a 100 per cent discount on the £11.50 weekday charge could be introduced from next April. Transport for London estimated this could cut the number of minicabs in the zone by up to 45 per cent — from 18,000 to 10,000 — and raise about £115,000 a day. Black cabs will continue to be exempt from the C-charge as they can carry wheelchair users." So who does this hit? IN a word Uber. And with the new rules that all cabs must be able to do 20 miles zero emission, another group impacted? Toyota Prius. In fact it's terrible news for soft hybrids.   https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/sadiq-khan-launches-bid-to-crackdown-on-rocketing-number-of-minicabs-in-congestion-charge-zone-a3881026.html   FARADAY FUTURE FF 91 GOES HIGH-SPEED TESTING And Finally...no longer vapourware, but not exactly ready-ware, the Faraday Future FF 91. However following a recent $2bn cash injection they have more good news, a high speed test run. Jon Wong at CNET reports: "Faraday travelled to the Transportation Research Center in East Liberty, Ohio and extended an exclusive invite to Roadshow to be on hand. Over the course of three days, a fully caged FF 91 test mule nicknamed the "Panda Express" for its black and white vinyl wrap ran through the Faraday Future Autobahn test cycle that had the EV accelerate to and maintain 155 mph for 3 minutes." Jon says: "When it was all said and done, the Faraday team seemed happy with their efforts that did produce software changes to improve the thermal performance of the LG Chem battery pack". Good luck Faraday Future, the $200k won't be for everyone apart from the very top of the market. If you're going after buyers who are used to the finest German engineering, you better get it spot on.   COMMUNITY YouTube Comments   You can listen to all previous 169 episodes of this podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, YouTube, TuneIn, Stitcher, and the blog https://www.evnewsdaily.com/ – remember to subscribe, which means you don’t have to think about downloading the show each day, plus you get it first and free and automatically. It would mean a lot if you could take 2mins to leave a quick review on whichever platform you download the podcast. And if you have an Amazon Echo, download our Alexa Skill, search for EV News Daily and add it as a flash briefing. Come and say hi on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter just search EV News Daily, have a wonderful day, and I'll catch you tomorrow.   CONNECT WITH ME! evne.ws/itunes evne.ws/tunein evne.ws/googleplay evne.ws/stitcher evne.ws/youtube evne.ws/soundcloud evne.ws/blog

New York Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman resigns after explosive New Yorker article features four women who reveal Schneiderman as serial abuser. Trump found a new best friend in the “very honorable” Kim Jong-Un. They’ll have their bromance meet up in Singapore. Three Americans freed from North Korea. Trump looks to gut CHIP on the same day Melania re-releases Obama pamphlet on cyberbullying under her name. Trump advisor says trouble with Nazis is that they didn't keep going. Comments at Turning Point USA event. White House looking to hire private spies to counter “deep state” enemies. Jeff Sessions wants to take kids from their parents at the border. Rudy Guiliani resigns from law firm over tv appearances. Hugh Hewitt allowed to keep his job at MSNBC and The Washington Post after doing favors for Scott Pruitt. Historic wins for women during Tuesday’s primaries across the country. Massive University of California statewide strike. National Nurses United engage in “sympathy strike” with striking AFSCME workers. After three days of a strike, the fight goes on. North Carolina Teachers next to strike? Bernie Sanders introduces “Workplace Democracy Act.” Mass murderer Don Blankenship not elected. Fracking will probably cook the planet, but no one is listening. And a week filled with stories about white people calling the police on black people for living normal lives. Recap on Bernie Sanders barnstorm of PA in support of progressive candidates. Dom Costa mounts GOP write-in campaign for fear of Sara Innamorato victory in Democratic primary in PA District 21. Progressive candidates Sara Innamorato and Summer Lee - both facing members of the Costa family in Democratic primaries - are matching fundraising numbers with the Costas. A Democratic Party member writes letter to the editor wondering why Democracts should let the DSA dictate the rules? Because we need better Democrats, maybe? We welcome back Lou Ryan to Raging Chicken! Her new articles follow the fight against gentrification in Organizing against gentrification in the East Liberty neighborhood in Pittsburgh. Jordan Peterson, who has claimed that feminists have “an unconscious wish for brutal male domination,” referred to developing nations as “pits of catastrophe” coming to the Tower Theater in Upper Darby. Colleen Bradley and her legal team ready their Writ Of Certiorari for the U.S. Supreme Court. In space and beer news, CubeSats head for Mars. Marco. Polo. Space workers strike against United Launch Alliance. Americans have fewer vacation time than your average medieval peasants. Free Will Brewing is releasing Chasing the Dragon release today. Dandelion Saison in the works.

On this week's episode, our guests speak with us about how two distinct locations – featuring two billboards – in the city of Pittsburgh played remarkable roles in social movements and controversies over urban spaces. In our first conversation, we speak with Derek Handley (recent Carnegie Mellon Rhetoric PhD. graduate and soon-to-be faculty at Lehigh University) about his study of “Freedom Corner” in Pittsburgh's Hill District, and how it functioned as a location and a resource for arguments against urban renewal practices in that neighborhood. Then, we talk to Liana Maneese, a social practice artist and entrepreneur with The Good Peoples Group, about a recent controversy in the neighborhood of East Liberty over a billboard whose text read: “There are black people in the future.”Through these conversations, we explore how contestations over places play out in urban communities, as well as the linkages between African American social movements, language, and the ownership of space.Cover image: The original billboard located at Freedom Corner, circa 1960 (Image source), and Alisha Wormsley's "There will be black people in the future" installment at "The Last Billboard."Works & Concepts Cited in this Episode:Endres, D., & Senda-Cook, S. (2011). Location matters: The rhetoric of place in protest. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 97(3), 257-282.https://nca.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00335630.2011.585167Handley, Derek G. (forthcoming). “The line drawn”: Freedom corner and rhetorics of place in Pittsburgh, 1960s-2000s. Rhetoric Review.Toni Morrison's Nobel Lecture, in which she states “Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence”:https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1993/morrison-lecture.htmlWhitaker, Mark. (2018). Smoketown: The untold story of the other great black renaissance. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Smoketown/Mark-Whitaker/9781501122392Wilson, Kirt. (2002). The reconstruction desegregation debate: The politics of equality and the rhetoric of place. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press.Alisha B. Wormsley's “There Are Black People in the Future” Project:http://www.alishabwormsley.com/there-are-black-people-in-the-future/Young, Vershawn A. (2007). Your average nigga: Performing race, literacy, and masculinity. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.Check out Liana Maneese's company The Good Peoples Group here: http://thegoodpeoplesgroup.com/Also, check out some of the details about her Adopting Identity project here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/adopting-identity-lies-luck-and-legitimacy#/

Today we're discussing the removal of an art billboard on the corner of Highland and Baum in East Liberty.

Raji Sankar is the co-founder of Choolaah, a new Indian restaurant in Pittsburgh’s East Liberty neighborhood. She co-founded restaurant development company Wholesome International in 2004, co-founded and sold a technology company, co-founded a media company, and held leadership positions in technology and media companies in Pittsburgh. She has an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University We talked to Raji about Choolaah, what Indian fast-casual food looks like, and how the restaurant industry has evolved. After the show remember to follow the discussion on Twitter (@BroadCastPGH) Facebook (@The Broadcast_PGH) Also, check out the Broadcast Podcast website and sorgatronmedia.com!

On this episode of the Veterans Breakfast Club Podcast, listen to the stories and voices of local veterans recorded live October 22, 2016 at Vintage Senior Center in the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Host: Todd DePastino. Audiography: Kevin Farkas. Featured Stories and Voices Chuck Spring (14:25) John Clark  (30:38) George Haught  (48:10) Beverly […]

Let us make a bold statement: Scott Evans is the personification of what we stand for as a podcast. In 2009, Scott saw the potential of Utah's food scene, the cuisine and concept gaps in the area, and decided he was ready to do something about it. After his father's death and before his first restaurant, Scott Evan's love and passion for sustainable food and progressive ideas led to an exploratory life path where food became the guiding light. He spent years in restaurants and elite five-diamond hotels before setting off on his own path, opening Pago in 2009 in the 9th and 9th neighborhood in Salt Lake City. It was one of the first farm-to-table concepts in Salt Lake City, and at Pago, he created a small army of chefs, baristas, servers, and bartenders who brought quality and energy to the flourishing Salt Lake community. Over the coming seven years, Scott Evans introduced four additional top restaurants in Utah's food scene.On this episode of The Utah Foodie, we sat down with Scott Evans, the founder of Pago, Finca, East Liberty Tap House, Hub and Spoke, and the newly opened Trestle Tavern. You could say he's a busy guy. But with these restaurants comes a fascinating story of growth, opportunity, passion, and a commitment to people that truly shows just how valuable these small businesses are to the community.Join us as we get to know local restaurateur Scott Evans, and learn more about how these restaurants have shaped our community.—This episode was sponsored by…90.9FM KRCL — Community Connection and Music DiscoveryThe Chocolate Conspiracy — A project in pure, raw, honey-sweetened chocolate.Maddox Restaurant — Featuring completely from scratch recipes in Perry, UT. since 1949, sourced and crafted from the finest ingredients available.Beltex Meats — A small butcher shop utilizing local meats and sustainable practices. Specializing in the craft of whole animal butchery at 511E 900SGREENbike — Salt Lake City's non-profit bike share. Their bikes are ready to ride, one-size-fits-all, and located at popular downtown hot spots. Take as many 1-hour rides as you want for an entire year for only $75.—This episode of The Utah Foodie was hosted by Chase Murdock and produced by Ryan Samanka. Visit our episode archive on Ventricle Presents, and stay connected with us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Copyright © Ventricle Media, LLC • ventriclemedia.com

Want to sell your home? Get a FREE home value report. Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale.Today, I want to share some of the 2015 numbers for the residential home market here in Pittsburgh. Spoiler alert: it was one of the best years ever! Last year, we had a record number of home sales and big increases in home sales throughout the region. As a whole, home values rose 6%, which is one of the biggest gains the Pittsburgh market has seen in a long time.A few factors attribute to this surge in market values. First-time home buyers were very active in our market, as we saw the highest amount of activity from that group since 2010. In addition, historically low interest rates brought a lot of people into the market who might have otherwise been on the fence. Here in 2016, we’re currently in a seller’s market, but we’re unsure how much longer this will last. The market may slow down a bit as rising interest rates put more pressure on buyers and sellers alike. We’ll have to just wait and see how the market reacts.As it stands, we still have some very hot markets in Pittsburgh. Lawrenceville has a lot of rehabs and new construction, and it’s currently the hottest neighborhood in the area. Right behind that is the Highland Park and East Liberty areas, where home values are rising quickly. As far as suburban markets are concerned, Mount Lebanon had one their best years ever, with 515 homes sold and $136 million in sales volume in 2015! Inventory levels are very low in that market, and those conditions are likely to continue. If you are looking to take advantage of these great market conditions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We would love to hear from you!

Making a living wage in the restaurant industry can be tough. Servers and bartenders rely on tips for the bulk of their income, and in the kitchen, the wage is set by the business owner. Recently the restaurant Bar Marco made waves by announcing it would pay all of its workers a living wage. But at least one restaurant in Pittsburgh — Dinette in East Liberty — has been paying above industry standard for years.

Chris Boles is one of the curators behind the Double Mirror Exhibit, (a bimonthly art show at Delaine's Coffee in Pittsburgh's South Side) and the art manager at Red Fish Bowl, (a Pittsburgh based artist collective). He's the most productive yet laid back person I've met and seems to know anyone making anything in the city. In this chat we learn about it all! Before you hear our conversation however, there are a few chats I collected at the 2014 Greater Pittsburgh Art Council's Annual Meeting. Guests to the meeting were treated to performances from 1Hood, including a standout showing from Blak Rapp M.A.D.U.S.A. The keynote speaker, Roberto Bedoya, (executive director of the Tucson Pima Arts Council, which includes the PLACE Initiative), spoke on the theme of belonging and how art and culture connect us to more than just a place but also to a way of living. I'm happy to say that he didn't pull any punches or speak only on the cheerier topics of art, culture, and bringing people together. Instead, he got right into social justice and the history of what George Lipsitz called "white spatial imaginary," which has actively criminalized non-white, non-Christian culture and ideas in the United States. The audience hung onto his words, specifically when he described Rasquachification: "The Rasquache spatial imaginary is a composition, a resourceful admixture, a mash-up imagination that, through objects and places, says, I'm here—whether that be New Orleans, East L.A., the Bronx or South Tucson—and I'm part of the many and I walk down these streets with a Rasquache passport that says I belong."— Roberto Bedoya, "Spatial Justice: Rasquachification, Race and the City" This hits us hard here in Pittsburgh where it's easy to feel like an outsider. The dominating voice that seems to demand a focus on all things "black and gold," pierogis, and now $15 cocktails just doesn't include everyone. After Bedoya's speech, Janera Solomon of the Kelly Strayhorn Theater mentions the new hotel being built next door. She explains how very nice the chain is and predicts that the latest building will be equally so—offering free WiFi in an open lobby where people will be encouraged to work on their laptops, even if they are not guests. It's a part of the "revitalization" happening in East Liberty. While a nice invitation, Janera stresses that part of the gesture requires the hotel to create a welcoming atmosphere and is skeptical whether it is possible for everyone in East Liberty and the surrounding neighborhoods to feel that way. She wonders also if the art she makes in her theater can be viewed as a threat to those hypothetical hotel patrons.  You may ask, why are you going on about this before a chat that seemly has nothing to do with this topic. Well, I'm writing all of this here because we didn't get to it in the soundbites from the meeting or in the chat with Chris, (that was recorded before the meeting in mid-November). I'm writing all of this, because since the GPAC meeting there's been even more evidence in the headlines of why belonging and place-making, place-keeping, and welcoming are important ones. I'm writing this here because if I did this in a separate post with a different headline then you probably wouldn't have clicked on it. I'm writing all of this because I'm still trying to figure out where I belong. Even though on the outside it looks like I should fit right in with the dominating voice I mentioned above, I don't feel that I do. Chris Boles on the Internet // Other links redfishbowl.com durty1.com The Night Gallery Runaway Studios Pgh Decaffeinated Grapefruit

Instead of a regular interview I wanted to do a little diary post to talk about the things on my mind and what's going on in Pittsburgh.  Jennifer and I talk about BOOM Concepts, why you should follow @SocialKimLy on Twitter, the bullshit that is the cease and desist for Uber and Lyft, the awesomeness that is the Penn Avenue bike lane in Downtown, the soft opening of BankersSupply.co in East Liberty by past guest Nick Drombosky, and what in the hell the Bell Curve (link pending) is. Enjoy!

Lord Grunge is a rad motherfucking dude. From his stories about touring as half of the band Grand Buffet to creating writing and directing of the hit stage performance, Pittsburgh Batman. Tickets are on sale RIGHT NOW for the spectacular tale of the cape crusader with a Pittsburgh twist. Current friends and past guests of the AP Collection, Dave Mansueto and Davon Magwood are a part of the amazing cast. Tickets will sell out QUICKLY so make sure you go to PittsburghBatman.com and click on the buy tickets link. You can also go straight to ShowClix.com and search for Pittsburgh Batman—all pre-event ticket sales are online. Otherwise be ready to pony up more cash at the door of the Kelly Strayhorn Theater in East Liberty where the performance will be playing on Thursday, March 20th, Friday March 21st, and Saturday March 22nd. Lord Grunge and I talk about coming up in the Pittsburgh music scene, where the idea came from for Pittsburgh Batman, and pretty much whatever the fuck else we want to talk about! TIP JAR Click the button above to go to paypal.com. Enter theapcollection@gmail.com into the "Send Money" tab to contribute to the Tip Jar. Funds support the website and all that goes into keeping it running. Lord Grunge on the Internet CLICK HERE TO BUY YOUR TICKETS TO PITTSBURGH BATMAN! PittsburghBatman.com LordGrunge.com Lord Grunge on Facebook Follow Lord Grunge on Twitter @lordgrunge Follow Pgh Batman on Twitter @pittsburghBTMN