Rethink Real Estate. For Good‪.‬ Rethink Real Estate. For Good.

This is a long one.  But I couldn’t help myself.  You’ll soon see why.
Enrique Penalosa is an exuberant lover of cities.  Equitable cities. He served as Mayor of Bogota, Colombia not once, but twice, profoundly transforming his city from one with no self-esteem into an international model.
As Mayor, Enrique launched TransMilenio, a bus mass transit system, which today moves 2.4 million passengers daily. He also built an extensive bicycle network at a time when only a few northern European cities had one, along with greenways, hundreds of parks, sports and cultural centers, large libraries, 67 schools and a radical 33-hectare redevelopment in the heart of Bogota, previously controlled by drug dealers. This required demolishing more than 1200 buildings. Recently he published a new book called Equality and the City.  Look for it on Amazon.
Of course, the accolades are too numerous to mention here. Enrique’s work is considered significant and influential by many and the list of awards is long. 
There’s a lot to learn here.  More than an hour of podcasting can hold.
If you'd like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do. Share this podcast and go to RethinkRealEstateForGood.co where you can subscribe to be the first to hear about my podcasts, blog posts and other goodies.

Lyneir Richardson is building Black wealth through community-owned shopping centers.
He has an audacious plan to buy 16 community shopping centers and invite 1,000 small investors to co-own them with his company, Chicago TREND.  He’s made a sizable dent in this goal with over 340 investors, and five shopping centers in his portfolio. This will be #6.
To accomplish this, Lyneir and his team have developed a rigorous set of criteria for finding and buying shopping centers in majority Black Demographics that are on the cusp of change that might offer added value over a time. His plan is to empower Black entrepreneurs and community residents to have a meaningful ownership stake in the revitalization and continued vibrancy of commercial corridors and Black shopping districts.
But there’s so much more!
Lyneir wants every neighbor to be able to say "We Own This".
If you'd like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do. Share this podcast and go to RethinkRealEstateForGood.co where you can subscribe to be the first to hear about my podcasts, blog posts and other goodies.

Kirk Sykes is Managing Director of Accordia Partners, a Boston-based real estate investment and development company. Accordia develops large public-private real estate projects. Kirk was previously the head of Urban Strategy America Fund, perhaps one of the first urban real estate equity funds focused on the triple bottom line.
And that brings us to this podcast. 
Kirk has had a highly successful career, but that is not enough for him.  He has always given back, and for Kirk that means helping the Black community he is part of access capital and investment opportunities that have historically been unavailable to them. 
Listen in to learn more!
If you'd like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do. Share this podcast and go to RethinkRealEstateForGood.co where you can subscribe to be the first to hear about my podcasts, blog posts and other goodies.

In real estate development, envisioning how future societies will live can often feel like masterminding a high-tech work of science fiction.  Just outside of Houston, a new development of the future is emerging. But instead of flying cars and sky-scraping utopias, this version of Tomorrowland has its roots firmly and sustainably planted in days gone by.
Indigo, a 235-acre community, is being developed by Scott Snodgrass and his partner Clayton Garrett, both farmers. They have thoughtfully gone against the norm in every aspect of this project, focusing first and foremost on people and a human-scale to encourage interaction.  Downsized lots and homes, a working farm, the integration of small businesses, careful attention paid to embracing everyone, all make this project one worth watching.
If you'd like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do. Share this podcast and go to RethinkRealEstateForGood.co where you can subscribe to be the first to hear about my podcasts, blog posts and other goodies.
 

Rich Rogers is an urban planner and attorney in Buffalo, New York.
In his practice he focuses on tax credit financing and on creative problem-solving to help public and private sector projects work from concept into financing and implementation. 
Rich is also a real estate developer, with a project in lease-up on Buffalo’s main street.  There he’s put his knowledge to good use, converting a 30,000 s.f. Historic building into modern retail and affordable housing units, and employing every trick in his book to build his super-complicated capital stack, which of course, includes tax credits.
If that’s not enough, Rich has a crowdfunding platform called Common Owner focused on real estate and, you guessed it, crowdfunding tax credits as well.
There’s a lot to learn here.  You’ll enjoy listening in.
If you'd like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do. Share this podcast and go to  RethinkRealEstateForGood.co where you can subscribe to be the first to hear about my podcasts, blog posts and other goodies.

Adriana Abizadeh is the executive director of the Kensington Corridor Trust (KCT) in Philadelphia.
You might wonder what that is and why it exists.
Kensington was once known as the Workshop of the World with booming manufacturing and a well-employed neighborhood. Then, Kensington Avenue was a bustling local business corridor. Now there is a lack of economic investment and everything that comes with it.  58% of Kensington residents live below the federal poverty line and the average household annual income is just over $20,000.
Formed in 2020, the trust is tasked with reclaiming control of the corridor. They do this through the purchase of property which is placed in trust and governed by the neighborhood.
Neighborhood trusts are fairly new but if Adriana has her way, they will become mainstream.  Listen in to learn more!
If you'd like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do. Share this podcast and go to RethinkRealEstateForGood.co where you can subscribe to be the first to hear about my podcasts, blog posts and other goodies.