Are We Here Yet Podcast

Scott M. Graves
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We're telling the stories of entrepreneurs artists and other creative class warriors making a go of it in cities and small towns all over the country. The Are We Here Yet? Podcast blends topics of economic development, urban planning and arts and culture. We are the official podcast for SMGravesassociates.com.

  1. FEB 2

    What Should Cities Do with Abandoned Properties?

    What Should Cities Do with Abandoned Properties? Today's Episode is taken from host Scott Graves 'Are We Here Yet? substack of January 2, 2026.  The following is a transcript. Explore the Are We Here Yet? substack Our city completed a round of dispossessing themselves of properties they own this past November. These properties were acquired sometime in the past because their last owners failed to pay their property taxes, were abandoned after the death of an owner or other reasons. Our director of planning alluded to more than 220 such properties in our city of 16,500 people during our recent podcast. The city then acquired the properties through a tax lien foreclosure in the case of tax troubles. Some parcels have an abandoned home on them. Some are empty lots. All are no longer productive for providing housing or generating taxes for needed municipal expenditures. All of these parcels sit on city infrastructure. They were all once productive from a property tax standpoint. They provided middle market housing while homeowners paid property taxes in support of the water and sewer lines, the sidewalks and other infrastructure surrounding their property. I've had the opportunity to witness the process of dispossession of municipally controlled properties for many decades and in several of cities and towns in different parts of New England. What's built into each municipal process tells us a lot about each community. Here we'll focus on my current location in Rutland, VT. I had the opportunity to participate in our city's fall 2025 process as part of a partnership focused on incremental development. The application to apply for one or more of a selection of five properties stipulated that the process was not competitive (highest bidder); 'The City is seeking to recoup the amount of taxes owed in addition to whatever carrying costs accrued since acquiring the property. However, the City may accept a lower offer depending on the circumstances…' that all applications are considered for all listed parameters including proof you can complete a development, the quality of your plan and its relationship to the city's long term housing needs. Yet, the application asks each candidate how much they'd be willing to pay for each property and candidates can opt to pay any amount over the tax bill and city costs. The public meeting to review and vote in the presence of applicants began with our city planning director stating that the priority was placed on , 'making the city whole' through the process. It's not clear exactly how in practice these bids are considered against each other. During the public opening of all applications, the dollar amounts presented were announced. So is the point to achieve a highest bidder? Best plan to add housing units? Most likely to be able to pay? The committee, made up of alderpersons selected for the purpose, debated the overall dollar amounts of taxes 'accrued while the property was in city hands'. The idea of a tax bill accruing without a private owner of the property is, to put it politely, a highly theoretical exercise. What would incentivize me to pay over and above the former private owners delinquent taxes when, by definition, I'm required to, 'make the city whole'. Second, in considering whether taxes accrue to a non-existent private owner after municipal acquisition reminds me of the adage, 'if a tree falls in the woods with nobody there to hear it…' The application requests information as to how the applicant will pay for the property and development. If one indicates they will utilize a debt instrument from a local bank, proof of the loan is required. But how does one seek credible proof of a specific loan for a property for which one has no site control? Let's look at the yield this process has had in the recent past. Despite efforts, a number of past applicants who successfully acquired properties have yet to develop them, leaving abandoned homes in place for, in some cases, more than five years. While there does not exist a comprehensive list of said properties, through our efforts at Partners In Housing, we understand there are a number of homes acquired by developers who, for strategic reasons only they know, are left fallow. While the taxes may get paid, the housing units people need remain elusive. What was our own experience? We applied for an empty lot alongside one of the cities respected non profits. We were told the city had purchased the lot from a different non profit in the recent past for $1.00. To our knowledge no taxes were owed on the property . This was confirmed as the city planner presented information at the onset of the hearing. The non-profit entity was allowed to review their application first. To our astonishment, the executive director's plan was frighteningly similar to ours, right down to the language used to refer to 'panelized or modular construction'. Same number of units. Same overall footprint. Same construction principles. Nearly same target markets. Difference between rentals vs ownership for the residents. Ok, so it may be possible that two different developers have very, extremely similar ideas for the same lot. Said executive director than offered that, since their organization had recently come into a large donation, they were willing to pay $20,000.00 over the cities required $1.00 for the property. Since we were not willing to go over and above 'making the city whole' the property was awarded to the non-profit. One alderwoman stated that, theirs was the better deal for the city. After all, why should the city not accept the infusion of cash. Indeed, this refutes the rules within the city's own application. Am I crying bitter tears? The loss of this project will not negatively affect our company. Was I happy with the process? Do I trust the process? Do I think all parties have the best interests at heart of myself or my neighbors? I want us to focus on the singular question, 'how do we increase our tax rolls while increasing the local capacity to build and benefit from more middle market housing?' All good outcomes stem from well thought out, consistently executed process. That starts with clarity for our priorities. So what should be our community priorities? The community's singular priorities should be: a) to return more properties back to tax roll productivity faster b) seek to proliferate small scale development opportunities for its citizens interested in doing their part to solve the middle market housing crisis. c) encourage a more vibrant local economy though development and the trades. d) increase the public trust through consistent and effective processes. The process itself can be automated through digital infrastructure, placing more lots before a public eager to get in the game. The internal processes and reallocation of human resources required for such changes can increase capacity while making for a more fair and transparent process, thereby increasing the belief in the common good. It may appear to you that a city that works aggressively to garner as much short term, one time revenue for such properties is looking out for tax payers interests. I don't think so. Lots that aren't productive today aren't housing citizens and aren't providing needed tax benefit to pay for infrastructure. Taxes get paid every year a household is made productive, for decades to come. Elected officials and their agents should understand there are only two ways a city makes money: new households that sustain needs while keeping per household tax bills down or the need to increase per household taxes as expenses rise. I wrote about this here. To support organic growth also presents an excellent opportunity for building political capital for those elected officials willing to participate in informing their constituents. Your tax rate stays put or reduces. We get more housing. We can fund increasing expenses such as new sewer and water lines when they pop. A big picture emerges with stronger and safer neighborhoods full of new housing. Improved sidewalks, plantings and other placemaking infrastructure sustainably funded. Future improvements to sewer and water systems now be well funded making our city more resilient. All grand list expenditures become more feasible for decades to come. And new households seeking an opportunity to stay in our great state of Vermont find the housing they need to make our great corner of the world thrive.

    13 min

  2. JAN 25

    What Makes a Good Corporate Neighbor?

    Report from the New England Beacon We're talking with correspondent Chris Brady of the New England Beacon for this AWHY? Episode. His recent article in the Beacon entitled, 'CVS calls Woonsocket, RI home.  Do Residents Benefit?'  explores the relationship of a $373B corporate entity and its de-industrialized, under capitalized home city. While Woonsocket lets dozens of teachers go CVS found ways to eliminate its obligation to pay property taxes.  Its unique relationship to the state of Rhode Island's Economic Development Corporation allows them to reduce its overall tax burden on income.  While it's true this corporate entity employs thousands, many from Woonsocket and Rhode Island, we're asking what makes for a 'good' or effective corporate relationship between a company and its home community.  When should a community consider it would be better to pursue a different corporate relationship?  And we're also considering what a positive relationship looks like between a large employer and the region and city it calls home.    Asking these questions are essential in the work we do to build more resilient community's through better economic development and revitalizing a community's built environment.  Support Chris and the New England Beacon because they represent the new generation of solid local reporting from an independent source.  Connect with Chris on substack

    35 min

  3. JAN 16

    What's in a Civic Brand?

    Author Ryan Short's 2025 The Civic Brand: The Power & Responsibility of Place caught our attention for a singular reason.  One of the books many underlying themes is to choose substance over shallow 'solutions'.  Why do we hang new banners downtown every 5 years when we make no substantive investments in small business to fill those empty storefronts?  Why do we collect data points to defend projects rather than define them? Ryan talks about taking action to discover the real issues at play, then solving the problems.  Without this, do you have a civic brand?  Here, at the 'Are We Here Yet?' Podcast and SMG we couldn't agree more.  Is our community's brand a swift-looking logo and color swatch and no more? Or should we demand more of ourselves? Ryan co-founded his firm Civic Brand with wife Banner Short in 2008. Since then, the couple have assisted communities large and small throughout the country to realize more meaningful civic brands and civic life at the core of those new strategies.

    51 min

  4. JAN 8

    My Response to the Magical Teenage Idol

    Transcript taken from SMGtheHouser.substack.com This week, a break from our work solving all the problems of small scale developers in rural America. Besides, our work relies on the success of tech entrepreneurs just as much as it does with municipalities, small business owners, manufacturers and advocates. So it's big tech and entertainment that's got my mind captured this time around. Ted Gioia's recent Substack on George Avakian's entrance into the teenage idol craze circa 1958 left me in my own stream of consciousness, reliving then to now and our slip into idiocracy with MAMLMs (modern advanced machine learning models). What's specifically got me frustrated is our consistent habit of giving up so much agency over tech and the enshitification that ensues. Is our society at large really ok with giving AI models a pass? If so, how did we get here? What began the slippery slope into permission for intellectual sludge which in our time might be on the precipice of being used to eliminate jobs, yours and mine, while further degrading the value of intellectual rigor? Capitalism is good at placing monetary value on a product or service. What it can't do, what it never could do, is place a value on quality. It can't critique, it can't consider, it can't make you look cool in front of your lover while you make an obscure reference. People like Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Abigail Adams and Mercy Otis Warren understood plainly that the Revolutionary ideals that started it all, themselves bearing ideas as far afield from each other as those of John Locke, The Marquis de Condorset and the Haudenosaunee would not last unless the new country they helped launch waseducated. I'd like to believe they were really after a populace rooted in intellectual rigor.  People needed to be able to judge quality. They needed to agree on minimums of toleration while also being able to envision a future rooted in intellectual pursuit. They needed to think for themselves. So, we created the teenage idol. Not knocking you kiddos. I mean, it's adults who keep messing this stuff up. Alongside the creation of a new suburban landscape that launched an entire literary and cultural onslaught based on boredom and depression, came the desire to create cheap art. It was supposed, this would be most desirable to teenagers, fresh to market and flush with disposable income. An advantageous feature for record labels and book publishers was this stuff could be made on the cheap. Why deal with sophisticated adult performers and writers who believe in the artistic process, have 'standards' when you can sign kids with desperate parents. Hell, let's do away with A&R departments. Don't need those anymore. Stan Freberg saw it coming. It's quaint to hear, 'So long music parasite'. Surely, or so he thought, jazz would prevail over the trite. Here's his Payola Roll Blues: Right side of artistry. Wrong side of history. How does this relate to the here and now? Roughly speaking, we've had artists from the mid century to now insisting to us through their art to pay attention. Zappa's Joe of Joe's Garage fame ended up a cucumber living inside his head because, even as the record business debased his fantasy society, faschistic forces were tightening the screws on the public, a public willing to go along in the name of morality. Of cleanliness. We cut music and art programs for everyday America. We amped up the morality police running parallel with the desecration of industrial America. Manufacturing America. Working America. We gave each other permission in a two-parent-working-three-or-four-jobs-household to cut corners on quality of thought. We stopped going out. We stopped having the money… 'not enough time for that'. We stopped believing that our popular cultural pursuits should challenge our notions. Not enough time for that. This led to the next logical conclusion. Don't like being challenged by your college professor, just declare you're triggered and start convulsing on the floor. Let's face it, by the time we got ahold of the fact that suburbia can't pay for itself, and that we're really not sure what 'good' art or music is anymore, and that our kids are getting to college without having read a single novel, now AI is being sold to us as the next big thing, totally going to change the world, totally awesome BTW in totally vague terms. And likely , because it's all totally controlled by an elite who got pants-ed a thousand times in high school for being in the A/V club, is totally coming for your job while stealing your work content even as it can't totally do everything it's creators say it can totally do. Totally indeed. Totally needless. Totally worthless. We've gone from giving permission for lower quality art to giving permission for companies to 'aggregate' art, for free, in order to feed the AI beast. After all, it's just content, right? Why develop the largest opportunity for blanket licensing payments when you can steal writ large across the entire creative class economy? I'm reminded of what it was like as a teenage performing artist forty years ago. 'We can't pay but hey, it's a great opportunity for you to…. get your name out there.' Now the corporate state takes your very identity and converts it into profit. Most folks are too busy surviving to understand how bad this is, let alone understand how we got here. Because, after all, all those imaginary guitar notes, and other tasty thoughts, remain in the imagination of this imaginator. Watch your step, the white zone is for loading and unloading…..

    16 min

  5. 12/31/2025

    Empowering Gig Workers

    Empowering Gig Workers  Tamara Laine is the founder of MPWR, a fintech services platform launching in 2026 to serve the some 80 million global gig economy workers.  This isn't the first founding experience for Tamara, here she is speaking with Nasdaq in 2023 regarding an earlier experience with Card Shop Live.  MPWR will focus on providing lending and support tools to gig economy workers who up until now face significant challenges accessing the financial services that W2 workers typically take for granted.  Their reach could be vast, Tamara is focused on the domestic market but also has her eye on markets in Africa and Asia where gig economy workers proliferate.   This sector is one we've been following at the podcast for some time.  Our parent company SMGraves Associates has been advocating for support opportunities by new services providers through their accelerators and economic development programming.  Tamara also gave us her perspective on artificial intelligence beyond just its beneficial use through her work, a discussion you don't want to miss.   Connect to Tamara  In her own words 'I started my career in documentaries and journalism, which taught me so much about human behavior and intent. Every day was fast-paced, but, more importantly, it was filled with talking to people about their problems, conflicts, or solutions. I learned that unique personalities brought unique solutions to every situation. Now as a team leader, I see the value of every teammate's perspective, insights, or roadblocks and how that could be something to utilize for growth.'

    54 min

  6. 12/30/2025

    The Later Days of Big Bands: From the Culture Desk

    The Later Days of Big Bands: From the Culture Desk Join co-hosts Joshua Michael Stewart & Scott Graves on a musical look at just what all those Big Band musicians were doing decades after the end of the Big Band Era.  The popular culture phenomenon of swing music did not end when the record deals started drying up.  The spectrum and synthesis of styles, the premium musicianship and the comradery between bands and fans continued to the present date.  We bring you more than a dozen recordings in their whole from the seventies to now including mostly musicians and bands still very much alive.   You'll experience the music of Buddy Rich, Clayton/Hamilton Big Band, Count Basie, The Either Orchestra and folks new to the scene like Omar Thomas.  And my co-host put together a larger playlist for those of you who want to swing the night away!  Listen Now

    2 hr

  7. 12/20/2025

    What's to Come in 2026

    Cohosts Ryan Munn and Scott Graves delve into what's on the horizon in Vermont tech in 2026. Talk of BETA Technologies recent IPO and its consequences on employment opportunities was high among the list of other companies mentioned that we're watching in the upcoming year.  The list includes OnLogic, former podcast guest Rugged Micropower, Lightshift Energy and more.  If you didn't make the conversation this time around, have no fear.  We're watching YOU, too!  A look at the upcoming year cannot be had without some meaningful conversation on artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing and cryptocurrency as well. Check out our insightful 2025 conversation with AI leader Peter Voss.   We discussed current policy around these technologies and policy consequences for the workplace, for our country's position as an innovation leader and for society writ large.  Happy New Year from the guys at Innova802.  Reach out to us with your feedback, give us a review and let us know if you have a great story to bring to the Innova802 or Are We Here Yet? Podcasts.

    45 min

  8. 11/25/2025

    Rural Housing Report: New Ideas from Otis, MA

    Rural Housing Report: New Ideas from Otis, MA We're joined by Dr. Stacey Schultze, a fifth generation citizen from the Berkshire hamlet of Otis, MA.  After listening to Stacey tell us in detail about the town's greatest assets we're feeling good about the resiliency of small town New England.  Alongside her neighbors Stacey is engaged in garnering new ideas to solve Otis's housing challenges in the most direct way possible, by listening to what your neighbors have to say.      We've been gathering some compelling stories of economic development and housing this year from Berkshire county, Massachusetts.  Listeners may also find interest in interviews with 1Berkshire's Ben Lamb, PhD and Jenny Wright of the North Adams Partnership

    43 min
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We're telling the stories of entrepreneurs artists and other creative class warriors making a go of it in cities and small towns all over the country. The Are We Here Yet? Podcast blends topics of economic development, urban planning and arts and culture. We are the official podcast for SMGravesassociates.com.

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