Podcasts about walk score

On this episode of The Sydneyist podcast we discuss if Sydney is becoming unliveable. The US-based Walk Score rated parts of suburban Sydney as low as 3% and Australia's Place Score has found that Sydney's liveability is declining. Are our cities becoming unfair, inhospitable, unliveable? Elizabeth Farrelly spoke with ‘Place Score’ founder and CEO, Kylie [...]Read More... from Is Sydney failing us?

The podcast often discusses how human activity and policies impact the natural and built environment. In today's episode, Nimo and Jas share vital tools and resources to help you understand the environmental condition of your community and how to use the tools to make decisions in your personal life. The United States Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, is the source for most of the tools below. EPA's mission is to protect human health and the environment by ensuring clean air, land, and water with federal regulations. Press play to hear: Walk Score: An online tool that allows you to determine the pedestrian, biker, and transit user accessibility of a location.EPA Greenhouse Gas Emissions Calculator: Helps you calculate your home or small business carbon footprint and identify ways to reduce it.CoolClimate Maps: An analysis of household carbon profiles for each zip code, city, county, and state.EPA Environmental Justice (EJ) Screen: A mapping tool that helps identify areas where residents may be disproportionately affected by environmental pollution.EPA How's My Waterway?: Interactive data/mapping about the condition of local waters based on federal, state, and local government reportingThank you for listening and tune in every other Tuesday where Nimo and Jas keep it Four Degrees to the Streets.Follow us on X and Instagram @the4degreespod.Or send us an email to connect with us!ResourcesWalk ScoreEJScreen ToolWhat is EJScreen? | US EPACarbon Footprint Calculator | Climate Change | US EPASimplified GHG Emissions Calculator | US EPACoolClimate Maps

In this episode of the Colorado Real Estate Podcast, hosts Erin Spradlin and James Carlson discuss how aspiring medium-term rental owners can appeal to traveling nurses. (Hint: it's not all about proximity to hospitals.) Also, is Walk Score the most important criteria for real estate investors to look at when deciding where to invest in Colorado? Finally, the holiday market at Kinship Landing in Colorado Springs is the perfect time to get a unique gift for the holidays.

A good walking score in real estate can make you serious profits. Come find out what makes for the best walking score, and where these golden assets are!   We'll be defining walking score and what makes it up, we'll be talking about the best returns possible and what to look out for. This episode is for all property investors old or new, see what's trending and what will produce capital growth. I discuss -    2:12 - What Is Walk Score?   12:53 - Best Kind Of Location For Profits   15:00 - The Most Undersupplied Properties   26:42 - Massive Returns   Don't hesitate to hit me up on Facebook @SamSaggers. DM me any of your questions :)   If you're yet to subscribe, be sure to do so on your favourite channel.    Apple - https://pre.fyi/upi-apple   Spotify - ⁣⁣https://pre.fyi/upi-spotify ⁣⁣ Google Podcasts - https://pre.fyi/upi-google   YouTube - https://pre.fyi/upi-youtube   And remember, I'm really good on 1.25 or 1.5 speed :)   Take care,  Sam

On this episode of Authentically Successful, host Carol Schultz invites the co-founder and CEO of Carbon Title, Trevor Dryer, to share his journey in Fintech and later co-founding his organization in the climate tech space. Carbon Title offers transparency into the carbon emissions of all buildings, empowering stakeholders to understand, manage, and take action to reduce emissions across their portfolios. Trevor tells us the origin story of the company and how the platform can benefit not only the Earth but also individual buyers and large investors. The platform is similar to Zillow or Walk Score, allowing users to see the carbon output of properties and whether the owners are making efforts to reduce emissions. The two delve into which common building materials are least and most harmful to the environment.Trevor reveals his experience using 1099 contractors for his agency and how he wishes he had focused on the commercial side of his product earlier. They discuss the challenges of educating the market about the impact of CO2 emissions in buildings, sustainable building design, and managing a distributed remote team. Listen for helpful tips on giving feedback, finding talent, the climate change space, and how you can help the environment as a homeowner. BIO Trevor Dryer's goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by addressing the problems with building construction and design. He discovered that 38% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from buildings, including the materials used in construction and the electricity and natural gas required to operate them. As a solution, Trevor founded a company that aims to make carbon intensity transparent so that building owners and renters can make informed decisions about where to live and work. Additionally, he focuses on addressing the scarcity of low-carbon building materials, which need to be more widely used. Trevor hopes that by tackling these issues, he can significantly contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.Learn more about Trevor Dryer and Carbon Title. You can find more information on all our episodes at Vertical Elevation, and you can find Carol on LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.

In times of high inflation, don't rents have to collapse? Tenants are getting squeezed, paying more for food, gas, medical care, and everything else. Won't rents have to fall? Will this create a crisis for landlords too? If tenants can't pay the rent, landlords must still pay property expenses.  Historically, what happens is opposite of what most think. So I explore what happened in high inflation 40+ years ago to forecast what will likely happen in the future. There are three reasons why rents soar in high inflation: 1) tenants move down a class, 2) doubling up as roommates, and 3) today's low housing supply and high demand. Rents are up 12% year-over-year today for both SFRs and apartments. Real Estate Pays 5 Ways™, not four or six. Get started with income property in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh at: www.GREmarketplace.com/Coach Our in-house coach, Naresh, will help you. His services are free. Both urban and suburban properties are available. Urban areas often have a high Walk Score. The rent-to-price ratios in these three mid-Atlantic markets often exceed 0.9% and even 1%. Before you buy, you already have an inspection report, desktop appraisal, and placed tenant's payment history in-hand.  These rowhouses are often priced at a 20% discount. 3 bed / 1 bath is common. Resources mentioned: Show Notes: www.GetRichEducation.com/420 Get started with income property in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh at: www.GREmarketplace.com/Coach Rents In High Inflation: https://www.realpage.com/analytics/rents-move-high-inflation-market-look-1970s/ Current US housing supply: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ACTLISCOUUS Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com JWB's available Florida income property: www.jwbrealestate.com/gre or (904) 677-6777 To learn more about eQRPs: text “GRE” to 307-213-3475 or: eQRP.co Available Central Florida new-build income properties: www.b2rdirect.com Analyze your RE portfolio at (use code “GRE” for 10% off): MyPropertyStats.com  Memphis property that cash flows from Day 1: www.MidSouthHomeBuyers.com I'd be grateful if you search “how to leave an Apple Podcasts review” and do that for the show. Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our free, wealth-building “Don't Quit Your Daydream Letter”: www.GetRichEducation.com/Letter Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Top Properties & Providers: GREmarketplace.com Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Keith's personal Instagram: @keithweinhold  

EP. 860 - WHAT'S YOUR WALK SCORE??

Location, location, location. Those three words summarize how important location is when it comes to real estate. Understanding the connection between housing and the location within the neighborhood has always been the focus for the disability community because of what services are available in the community near housing and even a finer point; creating walkable sidewalks. Now real estate listings include some scores regarding walkability and other community-based scores. In fact, Redfin, Zillow, ReMax, and many others provide these community living scores because the methodology comes from the same source: www.walkscore.com . Walk Score's mission is to help promote and find communities with walkable neighbors. Walk Score receives grants for academic research that helps governments, urban planning, and real estate agencies to understand neighbors and their communities in the United States and Canada. What is missing is a score that centers around the disability community.  While Real Estate listings have not created walkable or other community-based scores that include the disability community, it should not stop you from continuing your own research through a few good apps once you have selected the geographical location you hope to buy a home. There are three apps I recommend looking into OpenSidewalks, AccessNow, and Wheelmate. If you use any of these apps, please share your experience on my Facebook page which can be found on www.horizontalhouses.com .  Transcripts of this episode can be found in a blog post on same webpage.Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/MyBlueFrontDoor)

This Podcast is all about In this video, we are going to talk about my favorite San Diego neighborhoods | your kids will Love It here. I asked myself if I was searching for a neighborhood that my kids will absolutely love, which ones would I choose? Maybe a neighborhood loaded with family friendly amenities, low crime rates, and great schools to go with it? In this video, I'm going to give you 7 recommendations on neighborhoods that are absolutely perfect for raising a family and for kids.All right, so let's dive right in! For this list, I went a little overboard but here are the key factors I looked at to come up with this list. 1.       I took into account Public Schools Grades and quality.2.       Higher Education Rates3.       Cost of Living Grade is important4.       Crime & Safety Grade (Based on violent and property crime rates)5.       Housing Grade - Based on home values, property taxes, housing costs, local schools, and more.6.       Family Amenities Grade - Based on access to parks, libraries, cultural activities, and family-oriented amenities.7.       My personal experiences in the neighborhood.8.       Outdoor Activities Grade - Based on weather, air quality, and access to parks and other recreational opportunities.9.       Percent of Households with Children10.   Walk Score 11.   Residents 17 Years Old and Under – from the US Census Here is the topic guide:1.       0:00 Intro2.       1:22 Search Criteria Explained3.       2:35 Torrey Hills.4.       3:25 Carmel Valley.5.       4:38 Poway. 6.       5:13 La Mesa.7.       5:50 Encinitas. 8.       6:40 Bonita. 9.       7:10 Clairemont Mesa. 8:30 Close OutAlrighty, those are my 7 neighborhoods. Like I said before, there are tons of other great San Diego neighborhoods. Let us know which ones you would recommend in the comments.

A big part of what makes a house a home is a sense of place. High performance is as much about neighborhood as it is structure. You will get a kick out of hearing two building science geeks, Jake and Pete, veering off in this episode to talk context with Jeff Speck, who literally wrote the book(s) on walkable neighborhoods, towns, and cities. Jeff Speck offers three reasons why we need walkable places to live: economic, human health, and the health of the planet. Jeff is smart, funny, and wide open for a rambling conversation with Jake and Pete. Some inspiring quotes from Jeff to pull you into this episode: “The typical household makes 13 one-way trips per day. Now that means that someone isn’t getting home at night!” “The automobile should be an instrument of freedom, not a prosthetic device.” “Transportation systems beget settlement patterns.” “The automobile was the first means of transportation that was not nodal or linear.” “Transportation systems beget settlement patterns and once you have a good settlement pattern you can have a better transportation system.” “Walk Score works despite the algorithm being crap.”

BE SURE TO SEE THE SHOWNOTES AND LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE HERE Eve Picker: [00:00:17] Hi there. Thanks so much for joining me today for the latest episode of Impact Real Estate Investing. My guest today is Christopher Leinberger. Chris has had a singular career working on urban land use issues, as a strategist, teacher, developer, researcher and author.   Eve: [00:00:47] Growing up in the 1960s and 70s, Chris was actively involved in community affairs and social change issues. He learned the value of connecting coursework and theory with hands-on community engagement early on. Although he first put his business degree to work in the corporate world, Chris found he wanted to run his own organization and opted to take over management, and then ownership, of Robert Charles Lesser & Company, now RCLCo. At the time, it was a one-office, real estate consulting firm in Southern California. RCLCo became one of the largest real estate advisory firms in the U.S., with four offices nationally, by 2000. Chris's new venture is a startup – Places Platform. This is a project he audaciously hopes will become "the Bloomberg of real estate and the built environment," developing tools and methodologies to measure economic, social equity and environmental conditions in cities and metropolitan areas. Be sure to go to EvePicker.com to find out more about Chris 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: [00:02:25] So, welcome to the show, Christopher. It's really nice to have you here.   Christopher Leinberger: [00:02:29] Really pleased to have a chance to chat with you.   Eve: [00:02:32] I read some of your bios, and the common theme in your development work is the one you discovered when you were eight years old, the value of well-developed, walkable urban land. And I'm wondering how that theme came to take center stage in your professional life?   Chris: [00:02:50] Well, it took me about 20 years to realize that that was what was driving me, from the age of eight – how we build our cities and why are certain blocks, certain places, vital and other places are not. And I didn't know that at age eight. But that's the basis of urban economics. But I thought that was just kind of a childhood fancy. And after business school, I went to work for two corporations and found out very quickly that I make a terrible employee and went to work with a small consulting firm in Beverly Hills, California, that I eventually bought three years later, Robert Charles Lesser and Company. And that, basically, was a firm that I could now explore how we build our cities and what makes certain places vital and others not so.   Eve: [00:03:47] And what did you discover along the way? It must have been pretty difficult setting out on this path.   Chris: [00:03:55] Well, certainly, this is back in the early 80s, and drivable suburban development was the thing in vogue. And in fact, this consulting firm, which did market studies, financial feasibility, I introduced strategic planning for both real estate companies and places, like downtowns. And I expanded the company from just a West Coast operation to a national, in fact, you know, we did a lot of work abroad, until I sold the company in 2000. It's still very active today. It's much bigger than when I was running it, back in 2000. But it was a little depressing to look at the fact that the market seemed to only want masterplanned communities and subdivisions and, you know, strip malls. And that's what we were doing in the 80s. The market studies and the financial feasibility were all about, you know, this drivable suburban stuff that we in this country invented. But then towards the end of the 80s, it really kind of started with a project I did in Downtown Chattanooga, which was a strategy for Downtown Chattanooga, the first downtown strategy I've ever done. And we pulled this strategy together with the city, with the place manager, River Valley Partners, and the county and the banking community and all sorts of ... and the great civic sector, just a remarkable civic sector. And we put together a strategy. 14 points to it. And within three years, 13 of the 14 were done.   Eve: [00:05:37] Wow.   Chris: [00:05:37] And it was off to the races. And so, I've stayed in, I've stayed involved with Downtown Chattanooga for the last 30 years. It's just been a remarkable turnaround. So, there I found that, good lord, people actually may want this walkable, urban stuff that, that really was so attractive to me when I was eight.   Eve: [00:05:55] Right. Yeah, I think I always dreamed about living above a coffee shop in a downtown.   Chris: [00:06:04] I always dreamed of living on a penthouse of a 1920s apartment building, you know, condo, co-op, whatever, and having a deck all around you and having the cage elevator take you up to it, and so ...   Eve: [00:06:21] Fabulous.   Chris: [00:06:22] Anyway, I got the cage elevator. The building I live in, it's five stories on Mass Ave, and it has the oldest elevator in town, which is a cage elevator that comes right up to our floor.   Eve: [00:06:35] How about the deck all around? No?   Chris: [00:06:38] No, didn't get that. The 'deck all around' is just about to become about 108 solar panels.   Eve: [00:06:45] Oh wow, and I got the coffee shop after about 20 years of trying so ... Just an aside, I'm especially in awe of your advisory role in Walk Score, which is a tool that I use every day, apparently with four million other people. So, that's an amazing tool that's emerged out of your interest, as well.   Chris: [00:07:06] Yes, I was on the initial board of Walk Score before, and then, of course, it was bought by Redfin, so that board went away. But I have loved the folks at Walk Score. I still use them, you know, in my research at Brookings and George Washington University. And now, in my next phase of life with Places Platform, which is my startup, that is basically Sim City for real, and Walk Score is foundational to that.   Eve: [00:07:37] So, I use it. I developed a Change Index for my crowdfunding platform, Small Change, and I use it to identify, you know, where projects are that walk in the door are located, like every day. It's a fabulous tool.   Chris: [00:07:51] It's remarkable. And the other thing that a number of us have found is that in walkable urban places, Walk Score above 60 yields tremendous value enhancement. You know, here in D.C., on the for-sale residential side, one Walk Score point above 60 yields about a 10-dollar-per-square-foot increase in value of a house or a condo.   Eve: [00:08:22] That's pretty amazing.   Chris: [00:08:22] That's huge. Places Platform just did our beta test in Grand Rapids, Michigan. So, this is a Midwestern town, small Midwestern town, not exactly a bi-coastal sort of place. And in the office market, one Walk Score point increases office valuations by a buck a square foot.   Eve: [00:08:44] Wow.   Chris: [00:08:45] And that's, again, for a town that an office sells for 180 to 200 bucks per square foot, one Walk Score point equals a one percent increase in valuation. That's pretty significant.   Eve: [00:08:58] So, I'm proud to say my Walk Score is, I think, 99.   Chris: [00:09:01] Wow, well that's impressive. My Walk Score's 92. I live within about four blocks of Dupont Circle.   Eve: [00:09:11] I live downtown in Pittsburgh, so you really, no, that's pretty simple.   Chris: [00:09:14] Yes, it's great.   Eve: [00:09:16] You know, I first became aware of your work when, when I was struggling with a capital stack for a little catalytic development project. And I heard about the Albuquerque project and 'patient money,' and those of us who do this sort of development know that it's very difficult to get traditional financing to accomplish groundbreaking projects. And I just love you to talk a little bit about how you approached that when you started that project, and, in general.   Chris: [00:09:45] It starts with an understanding that there is no such thing as new ideas. As you may have also seen or heard, my favorite urban movie is "Back to the Future," and it's the most important urban movie ever made that is popular because it shows the two ways of building: drivable sub-urban and walkable urban, in three different time periods. The 1950s, which was really a reflection of the early 20th century, 1985 when the movie came out, which showed how we completely disinvested in our downtowns and all the energy, and all the money, shifted to regional malls and business parks, and, of course, subdivisions. And then the near distant future, that again this 1980s view of the near distant future, which showed downtowns coming back. And the suburbs going into decline, and who'd have thunk that ...   Eve: [00:10:46] Yeh.   Chris: [00:10:46] ... in the 1980s. Well, that near distant future was 2015. So, these writers of the movie nailed it, and none of us in the 1980s were thinking that the cities were going to come back that quickly and that well. So, you look at how we used to finance, and much of the money in the capital stack... You know, the capital stack is going to be comprised of two basic categories – equity, you know, cash at risk, and debt, money you get from banks at very cheap interest rates. So, by definition, the equity is the risk capital and it goes in first and comes out last. And with a 'Back to the Future' financing approach, that, you've got to have 40, 50, 60 percent of your capital stack being equity, and most of that being 'patient equity.' It's not looking for an internal rate of return of 25 percent. It's going to be put in. It's going to get paid back when the project matures. You know, don't bother measuring it. Just recognize that it's there for the mid- and long-term. And if you realize that, in walkable urban real estate, you can make a bloody fortune. But you just can't make it in three to five years.   Eve: [00:12:18] But we have pretty impatient investors right now who want to make that sort of return quickly. Two years.   Chris: [00:12:25] Oh, yeah, oh yeah.   Eve: [00:12:26] That's frustrating for me with my platform, because, you know, some ... these projects that I think are so important for the future have a very hard time getting equity.   Chris: [00:12:41] So, you have to be creative, of course, and most the important thing to be creative about is making sure that the land invested in your deal is invested patiently. So, the best example... I'm in partnership with Robert Davis in my development company. Now, we're both, at this point, limited partners with our development company, which is called Arcadia Land Company, based in Center City, Philadelphia. But Robert's best known for the project, Seaside, on the panhandle of Florida. And it's the first New Urbanist project. And Robert got 80 acres from his grandfather as his inheritance on what was then known as the Redneck Riviera. This is where the country boys from Alabama would go down to the beach and drink. And Robert looked at this as a patient equity investment, and slowly but surely came up with a great urban plan, and slowly invested in the infrastructure, block by block. And he sold his first one eighth of an acre lot for ten thousand dollars. He sold his last one eighth of an acre lot for two million dollars ...   Eve: [00:14:02] Oh wow.   Chris: [00:14:02] ... 25 years later.   Eve: [00:14:04] Wow.   Chris: [00:14:04] And he still owns Downtown Seaside. It's worth a bloody fortune, with condo prices at 1,500 bucks a square foot. That's what the ancients knew how to do. And that's what the Grosvenors in London knew how to do 400 years ago. They were just, you know, farmers that happened to own this farm that became the West End of London. And they never sold the land. They just had long-term leases, and became one of the top 20 wealthiest families on the planet because they invested long-term. So, we have lots of examples, just not that many currently, as we have this 'get rich quick' mentality   Eve: [00:14:49] We really do, don't we? Interesting. What's your favorite project that you've worked on?   Chris: [00:14:56] My second project. I was still running and owning Robert Charles Lesser and Company and got hired by a Seattle family to redevelop a shipyard in Kirkland, Washington, right on Lake Washington, right across Lake Washington from Downtown Seattle. They built Liberty ships there during the Second World War. And this family also happened to own the Seattle Seahawks at the time, and they had their practice field there. And so, they asked me to figure out what to do with it. And we came up with this pretty, at that point, wacky idea of high density, mixed use, walkable urban – a new marina, office, hotel, retail around a plaza, rental apartments, condos, and from day one, decked parking, highly expensive to build, so we could get the kind of density that we needed. And the east side of the Seattle metro area, at that point, you did not charge for parking. So, this was an incredible investment with zero return as far as the parking goes. And everybody, you know, Urban Land looked at it and said, you're crazy. And I mean, even the office brokers who have no skin in the game, said this is crazy. And we came up with this set of recommendations. And the family, the Skinner family, old mine family up in Seattle, said to me, great idea! Now can you build it? And I said, holy smokes, I'm a consultant. What, do you want me to do something? So for about two years, I was the fee developer and it came out of the ground, it just ... to this day, it gets the highest office rents and rental apartment rents in the northwest of the U.S.. Because of its high density, walkable, urban nature.   Eve: [00:16:57] Wow. And you were hooked, right?   Chris: [00:17:00] Oh, yeah, I saw the power of it. It was just really impressive. And, you know, this is your ultimate doing well while doing good. And you can feel really proud of Carillon Point, which is what it's called ... because it's a long-term keeper. And I asked the family, so, you know, why do you want to do something that's, that's so unconventional from the finance point of view? And they said, well, we've been around Seattle for 100 years. Our family's going to be around for at least another 100 years. We're building with 100 year perspective.   Eve: [00:17:30] Wow. So, then what led you to launch Places Platform?   Chris: [00:17:35] This is kind of a culmination of all the work I've done, going back to age eight. You know, I mentioned earlier, it's the Sim City for real estate and place management and city management. It also could be viewed as the Bloomberg of real estate. Michael Bloomberg, with his original company that made him worth 40, 50 billion dollars, basically created a data set, a database of all the stock and bond markets back in the 70s and 80s, that ... and so on one screen in front of you, or actually two or three screens, you could understand anything about any stock or bond that was being traded on public markets worldwide. And that was a huge step forward. Well, real estate is worth about twice as much as all the publicly traded assets in this country, of all the publicly traded companies. And we are not yet at that point, but we have 100 percent database of all the real estate, we're real close, and that's what Places Platform is creating. Working with Walk Score, working with Co-Star, working with Zillow and Collateral Analytics, and a variety of other databases that are in their silos, we're bringing them all together. And we're looking at it from an economic performance point of view ...  meaning we can do gross regional product, GRP, at the place level, at the city level. At this point, we can't get GRP below the metro level, at least officially, you know, throughout the country. But Places can take it down and tell you what the GRP is of Downtown D.C.. We look at the net fiscal impact, how much does the city net at the place level? How much does Downtown D.C. make for the city of the District of Columbia? The revenues coming in from property taxes and income taxes and sales taxes and all the rest, minus the cost of services, the net fiscal impact. And these walkable urban places almost always make the bulk of the money for a city to pay for public schools, and to pay for welfare and other social benefits. And then, of course, we look at the real estate valuations for all the real estate.   Chris: [00:20:05] We also have three other metrics. One is social equity. What does it mean for somebody who is a low-income household? We also look at it from a public health point of view, and particularly with COVID. And the fourth one that we have not yet developed is, of course, environmental. So, what Places Platform is trying to do is to have a quadruple bottom line. To analyze public policy, infrastructure investment, major real estate development, and understand and quantify what the economic, social equity, public health and environmental, you know, hopefully benefits, are from those investments.   Eve: [00:20:47] Is your hope that this information will propel cities towards the right sort of development?   Chris: [00:20:57] That's it. I've come to realize in my career that there's either a downward spiral for cities or an upward spiral. And the 80s and into the 90s was the downward spiral. No matter what you did, no matter what federal program, whether it be UDAG grants or Model Cities or you name it, redevelopment, there was a downward spiral that no matter what you did, no matter how much money you spent, it would not change the downward spiral. Well, we're now in this upward spiral, with, you know, the market share gains for walkable, urban development is just through the roof, and the price premiums are two, three, four times the price per square foot of drivable suburban places. So, we have this upward spiral. And I have found that the upward spiral, if you have correct public policy, can both give you economic returns and social equity returns and public health returns and environmental returns. And this will be a measurement tool to make sure you are achieving all four of those returns. You do not have to sacrifice social equity for these economic returns.   Eve: [00:22:15] So, then I have to ask the dreaded question, do you think that COVID-19 is more than a blip on that upward spiral?   Chris: [00:22:25] To be flip? It is just a speed  bump, it is just a blip that, you know, a year or two from now we'll look back and just say, that was kind of a weird couple of years. But having said that, I'm not saying that a lot of changes are being sped up. Changes that were in place ...   Eve: [00:22:46] Compressed. Yep. Yep.   Chris: [00:22:48] The head of global research for Cushman and Wakefield asked me a couple of months ago to work with them to help figure out what's the 'future of office' in the U.S.. And so we're in the middle of that work right now, and certainly there's going to be an impact, particularly on the office market. There's going to be, in my mind, it's pretty clear, that there's going to be a repricing, i.e., a reduction in value of offices. It's going to affect different metro areas differently, and we're going to be looking at it, looking at the 30 largest metros to figure out what the impact will be in each of those 30 metros. But, like with every crisis, there's opportunity, and the opportunity, if we see a repricing and a reduction in occupancy in the office space as more people work from home, and, you know, it's not going to be 100 percent work from home. We know that. But it will be more than what we had, which is about 11 percent in 2018, according to the census, worked from home during the most recent week that that survey was conducted. It'll be higher than 11 percent.   Eve: [00:24:07] Yeh, yeh.   Chris: [00:24:07] So, those offices will experience a lot of pain. And the other thing is, that then allows that office space, which is in remarkably great locations, particularly the walkable urban space, to be recycled, probably as residential.   Eve: [00:24:28] Yeah.   Chris: [00:24:28] We are short anywhere from seven to 12 million housing units in this country. That we've not allowed the real estate development community to build. We have mandated that they could not build them. And that has created this horrendous affordable housing and homeless situation. And so a lot of those office spaces, as well as a lot of the hotels, are going to become assets that we can convert into housing in great walkable urban locations.   Eve: [00:25:03] Right, right. Aside from that are there any other current trends in real estate that you believe are most important for the future of cities?   Chris: [00:25:12] Yeah. We collectively in real estate and the built environment, you know, urbanists, in general, we really need to address, forcefully, the need to 'up-zone.' Up-zone land, and in particular, in cores and corridors. The cores are walkable urban places, both in center cities, but in particular the urbanizing suburbs. Probably 50 percent of new walkable urban development will be in urbanizing suburbs. Metro D.C. is leading the way, not just in this country, but worldwide in the urbanization of the suburbs in Arlington and, you know, downtown Bethesda, Silver Spring, Reston Town Center, National Landing, National Harbor. But it's a massive up-zoning battle ...   Eve: [00:26:07] Yeh.   Chris: [00:26:07] ... fought by NIMBYs. NIMBYs are the most pernicious force in urbanism right now, and I am quite ashamed of my generation, I'm a baby-boomer, that are leading the NIMBY charge and it's the most selfish movement ever. And they're basically saying, you can't come here. And if I stop you from coming here, my house is worth more. And it's all in the land. So, we need to flood the market with more up-zoned, walkable urban land. But it's only going to be a small percentage of total metro land. Here in D.C. only two percent of the metro area is walkable urban. That's it. Two percent. And that's where all the action is.   Eve: [00:26:55] You know, you're probably familiar with this, but over the last 10 years or so, I visit Melbourne, Australia regularly, and they up-zoned their key commercial corridors in the way you're describing. And it's been really interesting to watch it. Are you familiar with that?   Chris: [00:27:10] Very much so. I've been to Melbourne quite a bit.   Eve: [00:27:13] Yeh, yeh.   Chris: [00:27:13] You may have run into Mike Day, who's the leading urban planner in Australia, who's based there, and he has an urban planning firm that is the largest in the country. And he and I have been working together, particularly in Melbourne and Sydney. Yeh, they really need to up-zone. I mean, they obviously, you know ...   Eve: [00:27:32] Oh yeh, Melbourne is sprawling badly.   Chris: [00:27:34] Oh, god, it is horrendous. And the same with Sydney. But, you know, their downtowns are among the top five on the planet.   Eve: [00:27:43] Yeah, they're fabulous.   Chris: [00:27:44] When you get out of the downtowns, and it's just suburban hell.   Eve: [00:27:47] Not all of it. Like Melbourne has a really great train network and a wonderful bike network that really connects some of the neighborhoods around downtown, really, pretty well, which is, you know, one good thing.   Chris: [00:28:01] Well, the downtown and the downtown adjacent places are tremendous in Melbourne, as you know better than I, you know, the region of Melbourne is comprised of, like in the U.S., many, many, many jurisdictions. And so the center city is one jurisdiction, downtown and downtown adjacent. So, then all those suburban jurisdictions just don't get it ...   Eve: [00:28:27] Yeh.   Chris: [00:28:27] ...and they are beginning to get it. A lot of efforts going into it. So, I have no doubt that they're moving in the right direction.   Eve: [00:28:35] Well, a city like Melbourne, too, I think it's one of the fastest growing metros ... It's certainly the fastest growing in Australia, and ...   Chris: [00:28:42] And it's such a lovely place. It is just ...   Eve: [00:28:44] It's a lovely place.   Chris: [00:28:45] Charming as can be. Remarkable people.   Eve: [00:28:49] Ok, then, do you think equity crowdfunding can play a role in building communities for everyone? We're talking about social equity and how people can get a stake in their own community.   Chris: [00:29:02] I think it's a critically important trend. And again, it's 'Back to the Future.' This is how we used to build the great real estate. I always used to wonder back in the 80s when I was really trying to noodle through how did the ancients of the late 19th, early 20th century build these buildings that were so well built? They were over-engineered. They were architecturally significant. They were built for the ages as opposed to the junk that we were putting up in the 80s and 90s that were, you know, just slam bang, thank you, ma'am. Throw them up. Assume that in 10, 12 years they're going to become a slum, and you didn't care because you got your money out. And it was because of crowd funding. And it was local folks coming together to build, in particular, you see this with hotels that, every city needed a glamour hotel that would show off the best of that city. And all the business folks would come together and put in money to build this hotel, to demonstrate that this city has come of age. And those hotels are with us today as the grand, marvelous anchors of our downtowns. Every city throughout the country has one. But the same thing applies to much of the commercial real estate, that a lot of small investors came along and dropped in the equivalent of a thousand dollars and they owned a little piece of their community. And that did a lot of things. One is they would economically benefit from the vitality. They would walk past it and they could say to their friends, I own that building. Point of pride. That's the great thing about real estate, is that, you know, unlike software development, which is viper ... just vaporware, you can point to a stick and brick building and say, I own that. Great pride, great emotional return. And it also gives you a reason to care about and patronize your hometown. It's the ultimate doing well while doing good.   Eve: [00:31:10] Yeah, I think you've described exactly why I started a crowdfunding platform. In Pittsburgh, you know, in the neighborhood I lived in for a long time, some of my neighbors would just band together to buy a vacant house to make sure that it wouldn't fall into a slumlord's hands. And, you know, that was exactly in that era. And I was, I was pretty impressed with that. I thought it was pretty fabulous.   Chris: [00:31:36] Yeh, yeh, I've seen that kind of thing happen throughout the country. Chattanooga, again, my favorite small town, has an organization called Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprises that has redeveloped low-income neighborhoods surrounding downtown with zero, zero displacement.   Eve: [00:31:56] Wow.   Chris: [00:31:56] And it's just remarkable. You know, there's so many great examples out there now, over the last 20, 30 years.   Eve: [00:32:04] Well, I've really, really enjoyed talking to you. And I can't wait to see how your new venture evolves. Thank you very much for joining me.   Chris: [00:32:11] It's been very good to catch up with you.   Eve: [00:32:13] Thank you. Bye.   Chris: [00:32:13] Bye. Bye.   Eve: [00:32:26] That was Chris Leinberger. His fascination with cities started at a very early age and evolved into an astounding career working on urban land issues as a strategist, teacher, developer, researcher and author. He built an enormous advisory company and then moved on to focus on development as a co-founder of the Arcadia Land Company, a progressive New Urbanist development company for which he is still a managing partner. I hope you enjoyed listening to this interview as much as I enjoyed recording it. You can find out more about impact real estate investing and access to 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.   Eve: [00:33:20] Thank you so much for spending your time with me today. And thank you, Chris, for sharing your thoughts. We'll talk again soon. But for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

SUMMARY Melody Warnick's debut book, This Is Where You Belong: Finding Home Wherever You Are, chronicles her experience navigating a cross-country move while also providing the rest of us a practical guide for loving the place we live—wherever that may be. With humor, candor, and loads of data, Warnick takes us through her personal exploration of the fairly new social concept of place attachment. Wanting to feel more connected to her new hometown of Blacksburg, Virginia, she fashions a social experiment, which she dubs “Love Where You Live." After creating a list of ten behaviors of place-attached people, she dives headlong into doing the very same things to see if she can make herself fall in love with where she lives. In the end she discovers how much relationships matter to be able to say, "This is where you belong!"  KEY POINTS Americans have a certain degree of restlessness, with 12 percent moving every year. They’re plagued with a fear of missing out. Apps and surveys about best places to live can confirm people’s choice to land in the “right place.” People tend to be either “Movers” or “Stayers.” When things don’t work out well, Movers are inclined to believe changing location will solve their problems. “Place attachment” – the emotional bond people develop with the place they live “Placemaking” – things people do in a community to make it better (DIY citizenship); usually done from the ground up (grass roots); on the rise “Place satisfaction” – never wanting to leave a place; feeling a place really works for you Examples of placemaking include sharing a Little Free Library, preserving green spaces, painting murals, repurposing abandoned buildings, etc. Walking is one of the most fundamental activities that makes us feel at home in a community. It forces you to slow down, notice things, and talk to people. “Windshield perspective” – found in people who are always driven places rather than walking the streets of their neighborhood Showing up for town events creates success and makes a town thrive. QUOTES FROM WARNICK “Places really are a little like people. They have different personalities. So, finding the right people feels a little like finding your tribe, finding the right friend group.” “Every time you move is kind of traumatic. You feel really lost and lonely and alone for a while.” “Two-thirds of college-educated Millennials say they’d pick the city where they want to live first, then find the job to get them there.” “No matter where you live, you have a hand in creating the kind of place you want to live in.” “Every town has something it’s good at. But we may have to shift our mindset about social offerings.” “Even in the Great Recession, the happier residents were with their town, the more the town prospered economically.” “’Falling in love with your town’ is a set of strategies that you can use wherever you live…even if you lived in a place a million years already.” BUY This Is Where You Belong: Finding Home Wherever You Are RECOMMENDATIONS Warnick writes for livability.com, which often features “Top 10 Cities…” articles. The “CityData”website is now usa.com, which features forums by state and town. “The Soul of a Community” – a three-year study conducted by Gallup, Inc. that answers what makes people like where they live and that the town is providing for their needs. Determines the factors that attach residents to their communities and the role of community attachment in an area's economic growth and well-being. Insert your home address on the Walk Score website to get a sense of your town’s walkability. Civic Dinners is a website designed to help strangers get together for a meal and meaningful conversation to spark real and lasting change. ArtPlace America offers large grants for placemaking as do The National Association of Realtors, AARP, and many other organizations. Connect with us! Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube Website Special thanks… Music Credit Sound Editing Credit

Redfin has released Walk Score’s 10 Most Walkable Cities of America and New York City is on top once again. Katrina + Kristen are pleased to see their respective cities at the top, though some ranks have shifted this year… Do the top 10 cities surprise you? Does your own neighborhood’s score seem higher or lower than it should? Join us as we virtually “walk” through these cities for ourselves and what it means to be walkable.  Thank you to everyone for signing up for The Women Led Cities Initiative teased last week! Don’t forget to send us your #urbanistwomenatwork submissions either anonymously or otherwise to talk about your experience as a woman working in urbanism. Email us at thirdwaveurbanism [at] gmail.com or send us a message on your social media platform of choice.  As always, you can keep up with our thoughts and send us your comments on Twitter or Instagram:  Katrina can be found at @think_katrina Kristen can be found at @blackurbanist And if you like these conversations and advocating for human-scale cities, you can donate to our unsponsored efforts on our Patreon page at www.patreon.com/thirdwaveurbanism. Thank you to our supporters, and thank you all for listening, sharing, and doing what you do! --- Here are the references in this episode: Redfin — These are the 10 Most Walkable Cities of 2017: https://www.redfin.com/blog/2017/05/these-are-the-10-most-walkable-cities-of-2017.html Walk Score — What makes a neighborhood walkable: https://www.walkscore.com/walkable-neighborhoods.shtml --- Intro and closing music is “Urban Life” by Gustavs Strazdin used under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license: creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode

On this week's 'Open House' - Reba and Eric explain that as a buyer, it is best to be fully engaged in the process of deciding what is important. In this episode, Reba and Eric discuss their limitations on what they legally can talk about with a buyer. They also talk about the different Seattle neighborhoods and considering the walk score for clients.Originally aired: 9/29/15

What’s your Walk Score? Thats a question that has become increasingly popular among urbanists since the founding of Walk Score seven years ago. Now real estate agents prominently display the number on their listings, knowing the value it adds to properties. Matt Lerner is a co-founder of Walk Score and its original chief technology officer, and is now vice president of local engineering at Redfin, the company that purchased Walk Score in October. He is our guest this week on 'Knight Cities.' Email me via: Coletta (at) knightfoundation.org.

Fear of cycling in traffic is the greatest barrier to bicycle transportation, but safe bicycling is possible when you take control of your space and drive defensively. Our guest today is cycling instructor Keri Caffrey, co-founder of CyclingSavvy and editor of Commute Orlando. She is working to increase confidence and prevent crashes by educating bicyclists on how to safely operate a slow, narrow vehicle on roads designed for fast, wide vehicles. Also check out this video in which Keri reviews the basics (and shows off her cargo bike). Later we share some interesting bike news (the good, the bad and the super cool), including: a New York Times op-ed on the near total lack of penalties for drivers killing cyclists, plus victim blaming, with a perfect response from the great Bike Snob NYC; a cyclist assaulted by an SUV passenger; a tool for finding apartments close to transit (may be helpful along with Walk Score); a kit for bicycling across water bodies (seriously!) and a DIY bicycle elevator.We close with a listener email on highway bypass roads and other suburban wastefulness, including the difficulty of providing useful transit in such places. It reminds me of a recent experience in the suburbs of Denver. Share your comments and suggestions for topics/guests by emailing feedback@criticaltransit.com, using the contact form or following my work on Facebook and Twitter.If you enjoy what you hear, please consider supporting better, more frequent shows by making a donation, sharing it with your friends and colleagues, and leaving a review on iTunes and other places.