Growing Cities Viviana M. Addo

During this episode, Viviana describes her motivations and inspirations leading up to the founding of the Growing Cities Podcast, relaunching her branded consultancy and how her experiences at the NYU's Schack School of Real Estate has prepared her for a career in real estate asset management. She compares her experiences as a consultant for Lemor Development Group to working for Cushman and Wakefield. She overviews her podcast episodes with guests about how to grow a city.

Season 1 Guest List (in order of appearance)
Nadya Rangel (Secretaria Distrital of Habitat Bogotá-Colombia), Claus Skaaning (CEO of DigiShares) Pedro Ortiz (UN & World Bank Senior Consultant on Metropolitan Management), Phap Vu (Architect for Hawaii Construction & Development Consulting) (HCDC), Frank Braconi (Former Chief Economist, NYC Controller’s Office) Stuart Brodsky( Director of the Center for the Sustainable Built Environment at NYU Schack ), James-Robert Sellinger (Co-Founder, Chief Financial Officer, Board Director at The Natural Resilience Foundation)  Carlos Patiño Millan (Associate professor School of Social Communication of the Universidad del Valle) Constanza Garcia (Real Estate Attorney) Julian Espinosa (Counselor and Head of Urban Development Commission-Bogota) Diego Piedrahita (Architect & Creative Director) 

In this episode we talk to a shining star of Colombian urban development and land use expert Nadya Rangel. She is the head of Secretaria Distrital of Habitat Bogotá-Colombia. She has decades of experience working with underserved communities to integrate them to the Bogota built environment in a way that is strategic to the sustainable urban development of Bogota, and fair to the community.

On this episode Viviana talks with finance and blockchain technology expert, Claus Skaaning. The topic of our conversation is how to use cryptocurrency or tokens as a new vehicle to invest in real estate. Claus is a PhD in Computer Science from Denmark, passionate about the democratization of currency at the global level, and CEO of DigiShares. He shares his insight on how the real estate and finance industries can capitalize on a future that would be founded on blockchain infrastructure. In a nutshell, tokenization is one way to securitize real assets. To securitize an asset means to divide it into shares that you can sell to investors. In the same way, to “tokenize” an asset is to divide it into shares, or “tokens”, that represent a predefined share of the underlying asset. Those assets can be real estate. This is an innovative way to invest in real estate using cryptocurrency, and in manageable inclements depending on your investment capacity and appetite. Claus also shares news about a Digital Securities and Tokenization Summit hosted by DigiShare this month. 
Learn more about DigiShares and the summit here www.digishares.io

In this episode Viviana talks with Pedro B. Ortiz. He is one of the few experts in metropolitan management and planning, and a leader in bringing awareness to the latent reality that large cities have to grow in a more strategic and sustainable fashion. Metropolises carry the inheritance of starting under situations in which social equity, and long term thinking was not part of the strategy. The result of it is the uncontrollable spread of slums all over the world. Mitigating this problem could not be more urgent, and governments addressing it is paramount. The real estate industry will be instrumental in contributing to mitigate this issue and help grow cities efficiently. 
Read more about Pedro and Metropolitan Management and Planning on www.pedrobortiz.com

Viviana talks with Architect, and rising star for Hawaii Construction & Development Consulting (HCDC), Phap Vu about the Hawaiian built environment, and real estate development.
He has a wide range of experience from luxury development, to floating architecture, to sustainable and affordable real estate. He has a PhD in architecture from the University of Hawaii where he focused on floating architecture, and did an abroad scholarship to the Netherlands for a prestigious internship.
Phap tells us about the current Hawaiian real estate development industry, the wonderful mix of asian cultures that influence Hawaiian architecture style, and his optimism about affordable housing and infrastructure under the Biden administration. 
Learn more about Phap and the work he does on www.hawaiicdc.com/about/team

Viviana talks with Former Chief Economist at the NYC controller’s office about his insight on how a mature city like New York City manages growth. He is an expert and super star in this arena, and has written several publications on this topic. As well as on the effects of gentrification and displacement due to city growth and other factors. Mr. Braconi shares his views on how New York mitigates the negative effects from city growth, how to use data to analyze urban growth, and about the future of affordable housing as a way to grow a city sustainably. Frank’s commitment to the growth of the capital of the world is evident in his work as Executive Director for over 12 years for the Citizens Housing & Planning Council of New York. Where he collaborated with other built environment intellectuals who envision a greater future for this growing city.