Sep 21, 2020
Photo by Jason Mowry on Unsplash This week’s guest, Smart Columbus director Jordan Davis, talks about her city’s platform, Can’t Stop Columbus, along with retasking her new mobility pilots for assisting the hardest-hit neighborhoods. Watch Now Transcript Greg Lindsay It’s my pleasure to introduce Jordan Davis, Director of Smart Columbus, coming out from behind the…
Sep 02, 2020
Any conversation about affordable housing should start out with the stipulation that there is an unmet need for housing of all types. In many areas of the country we are simply falling short in terms of the number of new units that need to be built each year to keep up with housing formation and…
Aug 24, 2020
The ongoing events surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, growing social and civic unrest, constrained fiscal environments and festering social inequality represent an opportunity to examine how we engage problems that are beyond traditional and are considered wicked. As described by the Kettering Foundation, wicked problems are complicated problems beyond reasoning that grow in intensity despite efforts…
Aug 24, 2020
Rising development costs and other market pressures are creating multifamily dwelling units that are less affordable and less desirable for everyday residents. In many places, it seems like a “race to the bottom”: ever smaller units that do little to foster community, contribute to less end-user occupancy, and perpetuate the idea that cities are reserved…
Aug 24, 2020
If there’s anything the year of 2020 has shown us, it’s that institutional structures and government policy really do guide what the outcomes are in our society. This is perhaps nowhere more vividly true than in the matter of housing, where racial disparities and lack of affordability persist, associated with years of rules and regulations…
Aug 24, 2020
When I was asked to speak at the 2020 New Housing Solutions event, I had no idea it would spark memories from almost 30 years ago. Memories of events in my life I have never shared with anyone, not even my closest friends. In the fall of 1992, my mother sat me down and explained…
Aug 24, 2020
The pandemic has caught us all in surprise. Yes, Gates said it would happen, but we never believed it would affect developed and resourceful cities and countries. We hadn‘t anticipated the damage such a pandemic could cause to urban preferences. Density, variety, mixed-use, and urban sustainability became a curse, and the nemesis of good quality…
Aug 24, 2020
Speakers: Mahesh Aiyer, Director, Citi Community Capital Steffen Fuchs, Senior Partner, Dallas, McKinsey & Company Kourtney Garrett, CEO and President, Downtown Dallas Inc Eric Johnson, Chief of Economic Development and Neighborhood Services, City of Dallas Moderator: Catherine Cuellar, Director of Communications, Outreach and Marketing, City of Dallas 5 Key Takeaways 1. The lack of affordable…
Jul 14, 2020
Participants convened virtually over three days in July 2020 to address pressing housing challenges in affordability, community, and health. Scroll down for the highlights, replays, quotes, and more! Day 3 – July 16 “We can house our homelessness by resetting our priorities. ‘Homes for All’ is an investment. It will employ thousands. We have the…
Jun 18, 2020
We center Equity and Inclusion in all of our efforts as an organization to confront and disrupt biases, stereotypes, and discrimination, and combat systemic racism and anti-blackness. We put together a non-exhaustive list of resources including live discussions, videos, books, organizations, profiles, and articles, that we listened to, read, followed, and discussed as a team.…
Jun 05, 2020
June 5, 2020 “The freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is, I want to argue, one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights.” David Harvey, “The Right to the City” We are anguished and heartbroken at the recent killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and before…
Mar 19, 2020
Public Health and Vital Budget were two concepts at the core of Patrick Geddes’ vision for a thriving city in his seminal 1910 essay “Cities in Evolution”. He was right, and this abrupt lockdown we are now experiencing forces us to reconsider both of them as priorities in the development of our cities. For twenty…
