Rethink Real Estate. For Good.

Impact

Re-designing design.

Once upon a time design and architecture were quite discrete disciplines. But over the years as educational priorities have been re-defined, they have become more complex and collaborative. We’ve adopted an inter-disciplinary approach to skills and knowledge that requires creativity, innovation and the ability to solve problems. Teaching is steadily moving towards a more collaborative approach as well, with a learning process called STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) which integrates across all of these disciplines in order to develop critical thinking skills.

John Folan recognizes and embraces this approach. As head of the architecture department in the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas he is working to teach a new generation of architects who apply their knowledge to the world around us in a thoughtful and collaborative way.

While at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, his previous job, John founded the Urban Design Build Studio (UDBS), “a collaborative of students, professors, and allied professionals who work with community residents on implementation of appropriate, affordable, replicable design solutions.” UDBS has followed John to Arkansas where it continues to focus on public interest design issues. UDBS tests the hypothesis that a collaboration of ideas, intelligence and expertise from a broad range of individuals and entities will benefit the outcome of the work. There architects, tradesmen, community participants and students together are working towards tangible outcomes and tangible impact, with projects quite often growing organically from conversations with community stakeholders and community leaders.

John also founded PROJECT RE_, as a way to expand the efforts of UDBS even further. Its mission is to reuse materials, rebuild communities and restore Lives.  Based in Allegheny County in Pennsylvania, PROJECT RE_ is a 10,000 square foot facility which holds a community meeting space, gallery, design studio and state-of the art industrial fabrication shop with CNC technology, a wood shop and welding training. Building materials are supplied to PROJECT RE_ from deconstruction of buildings in blighted areas around Pittsburgh and then used for job skill training and in the creation of projects. The facility is used by UDBS for its projects, by the Trade Institute of Pittsburgh for training, by Construction Junction for product construction and for workshops for community members.

Collaborative problem-solving, the panacea for our post-pandemic future. Listen to my interview with John Folan.

Image of RE_FAB courtesy of John Folan.

Co-creating.

Adam Sgrenci, a carpenter by trade with an education background in international development, founded The Center for Infrastructure and Society in 2019 with a mission to “accelerate social, economic and ecological transformation.”

As a startup the Center’s work has evolved over the last year into an organization focused primarily on human capital. While affordable housing is still at the top of their list, instead of just helping to build more affordable housing, Adam leads conversations on how to build human capital. Conversations that encourage communities to plan their own destinies – through co-design, co-creation, co-production and co-ownership.

With a day job that became a career, Adam started apprenticing in carpentry working on Victorian homes in San Francisco, rising from apprentice carpenter to journeyman, lead, foreman, project manager and then vice president of business development for a construction group in South Asia.

Assorted work opportunities placed him in Latin America (he is fluent in Spanish) to Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere, and what impacted him most over the years was the importance of building stewardship, or in other words, continued care and maintenance in the post-build phase of a project. From this perspective, a job is never complete and one creates a long-term relationship with client and structure.

Adam holds a B.A. in Development Economics and International Development from Bucknell University, and an M.S., in International Relations and Affairs from San Francisco State University.

Insights and Inspirations

  • Adam’s work focuses on accelerating positive impact through co-design.
  • Regenerative housing is at the forefront of the Center’s work. Adam believes there is a need for projects to “never end.”
  • The Center’s focus on human capital means encouraging communities to define their own future through co-design, co-creation, co-production and co-ownership.

Information and Links

  • Adam writes for HIVE for Housing. He likes the message they are delivering and the platform they are providing for out-of-the-box thinkers in the industry.
  • One of Adam’s favorite clients is Home Preservation. Check out the Home Preservation Manual.
Read the podcast transcript here

Eve Picker: [00:00:16] Hi there, thanks so much for joining me today for the latest episode of Impact Real Estate Investing.

Eve: [00:00:23] My guest today is Adam Sgrenci, the founder of the Center for Infrastructure and Society. As a start-up Center’s work has evolved over the last year into an organization focused primarily on human capital. While affordable housing is still at the top of the list, instead of just helping to build more affordable housing, Adam leads conversations on how to build human capital. Conversations that encourage communities to plan their own destinies through co-design, co-creation, co-production and co-ownership.

Eve: [00:01:10] Be sure to go to rethinkrealestateforgood.co to find out more about Adam 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: [00:01:42] Hello, Adam. Thanks so much for joining me today.

Adam Sgrenci: [00:01:45] Thanks, Eve. It’s a pleasure to be here with you.

Eve: [00:01:48] Oh, good. So, I was sniffing around on your website. I saw the following statement: We design and launch large scale housing projects that address the global housing shortage. And that’s the mission statement on the home page of your organization, Center for Infrastructure and Society. And I was wondering if you could just tell us a little about that mission statement.

Adam: [00:02:13] I’d love to. And of course, it’s going to come with a caveat, because in the world that we live in today, things move fast, and things continue to evolve. And so, for us, I might even add a, an updated version of that, which is still similar. So, what we’re sort of, kind of rebranding ourselves right now and saying that we’re essentially regenerative design and development organization, which means something similar. We accelerate the positive impact on local economy, local society and local environment through regenerative housing projects.

Eve: [00:02:56] OK, so slightly different, pretty much the same idea, though, still housing, right?

Adam: [00:03:01] Right, absolutely. It’s housing and just to be clear, you know, housing is a part of a large eco system of infrastructure. That’s where that the broader approach is starting to take shape. But, you know, as we as we talk today, I’ll be glad to share, you know, how we learned and how we’ve grown.

Eve: [00:03:19] Tell me a little bit about the Center for Infrastructure and Society. I think it’s a pretty new organization by the sound of it.

Adam: [00:03:26] Absolutely. Yeah, I know the sound is resonating well because as we continue to grow, we, you know, we start to learn more about all the opportunity that’s out there in the housing space. And this is something that I believe Small Change understands very well. This path essentially started for me 10, 15 years ago as a young carpenter coming up, building homes, as a contractor, then as a project manager. You know, you start to see some of the vulnerabilities that exist from the housing development real estate sector. And for me, one of the biggest things that was sort of a glaring vulnerability was the focus on human capital investment.

Adam: [00:04:08] So, I’m talking about workforce development. So, this has a direct relationship with skilled labor shortage and the global housing crisis. And so, my ascent here into trying to roll out with, which ultimately became the Center for Infrastructure and Society, was the need to bring this understanding of construction, of infrastructure and development to this place of, of empowerment. Those were sort of the two worlds throughout my career that I was always interested in. And so, that ultimately led me to creating a new organization that initially started by guiding mass housing builders in underbuilt environments on the things that, and by the way I’m am based in Silicon Valley, so here in Silicon Valley, it’s very common to hear conversations about you know workflow and KPI and, you know, career trajectory.

Eve: [00:05:09] Sure.

[00:05:10] So, where does that, yeah, and where does that sit and how is that situated within the context of the typical trades-person or the overall real estate space? That was the initial foray that that Center for Infrastructure and Society took into the world.

Eve: [00:05:27] Maybe you can explain a project that you’re currently working on.

Adam: [00:05:31] Sure, love to. For example, back in October, I took a series of trips. I was in Nigeria and I was in India and all I was really doing was taking that consultancy approach to working with builders to kind of help analyze training in the workforce and how all of these things can sort of be brought in-house. Well, we’ve seen the rise of the con tech in the prop tech companies over the last, say, five or six years especially, in the real estate space. And so, what they were sharing with the world was, look, we can vertically integrate all of this. Design, engineering, but everything down to manufacturing the product. So my kind of approach was to work with some people that I knew that were already working in mass housing in some of these places and start to inquire about what it is that they’re looking for and what the, you know, where are the vulnerabilities that they’ve identified to their own growth. And to solving their own local housing crisis. And so what that evolved into was digging in to KPIs and workflow and how you might be able to bring manufacturing in-house to vertically integrate, similar to some of the larger companies in the world.

Adam: [00:06:55] We actually started to take a step back and look at, like, what we call in regeneration, you know, the whole ecosystem. So, right now in Nigeria, for example, we’re working with a mass housing builder to help them, who already has some of these technologies in-house, so they’re not stick building or they’re not building with block, they are actually already using panel systems, which is great. So, they’re manufacturing that, so they’ve reduced some aspects of that supply chain. Though we are recognizing that one of the things that development tends to ignore, at least conventional development and I know in many of your projects, you guys do this as well, and it’s the partnerships with local community. It’s co-designing with people who are actually going to live in these places so that when the project is over, at least when it’s installed, now there’s a foundation for perhaps social enterprise for those folks that are living in the new community. There is, you know, maintenance programs to keep these projects standing strong and looking great. So, that’s one project that we’re doing in Nigeria. It’s advising a mass housing builder to…

Eve: [00:08:10] The co-designing thing. you know, I was at a co-creation conference last week and have to admit I found a pretty overwhelming because, you know, there’s a lot of people involved who had everything from absolutely no skill, no understanding of the real estate space to people who’ve had quite a lot of experience. That’s really difficult community engagement to do.

Adam: [00:08:37] Absolutely.

Eve: [00:08:37] So, when you’re in a place like Nigeria with a company that maybe wants to introduce co-designing, is what I thought I heard you say, how do you go about doing that?

Adam: [00:08:48] That’s a great question. Ultimately, for us, it comes down to having a model and a framework for the discussion because that helps guide everyone into at least a direction. We start out with workshops and you know, where you might consider a town hall as an opportunity to explore relationships in the community, town halls tend to be a kind of space that is just as, let’s say, conflict ridden as the typical fragmentation of our, of our industry, where everyone’s sort of protecting their own idea. And so, with a model in place, we’ve got a four-part model. And so, it’s broken down into benefit capital, regenerative technology, community engagement and strategic partnership. And so, we sort of give some context and background and we kind of set the stage for the conversation. If it’s initial conversation versus, even if it’s you know, we’ve been doing this now for two weeks or three weeks with a specific group, we’re at least all coming from a similar perspective and that helps keep us focused on what you very astutely observed, that it’s actually quite overwhelming. We’re talking about an ecosystem, right? Who’s in the ecosystem? It’s governments and it’s corporations and it’s labor unions and it’s non-profit organizations. And yeah, to your point, very correct.

Eve: [00:10:23] So you have a structure that you’ve thought through that can sort of help guide people and companies to some sort of commonality, by the sound of it.

Adam: [00:10:33] Absolutely. That has helped us at least get us to a point where we’re all able to, you know, align on next steps.

Eve: [00:10:43] Right, interesting. That’s a pretty difficult job you’re tackling there.

Adam: [00:10:49] Yeah, hence the sort of rethinking of how we work. You know it happened in Nigeria, honestly, when I was interviewing and, you know, just doing assessments and talking to different builders and, you know, the reason that I had traveled there was because there was an interest for this vertically integrated approach to running businesses and having business models that didn’t depend on too many suppliers, and, especially in other parts of the world, or even it happens here in the US, there’s always an opportunity for details to get lost and things to happen on development projects.

Eve: [00:11:28] That’s for sure.

Adam: [00:11:29] And so, what we realized early on was, our clients didn’t only want the advisory, but they also wanted access to finance. They wanted to be able to grow. They wanted access to stronger relationships. And so that also helped influence us on how we present a model. My partner, Peter Coughlan, has been working in the world of regeneration. Prior to working with me on infrastructure specifically, he had started to develop a similar model in regenerating oceans and regenerating the coral reef and in soils.

Adam: [00:12:11] And that, he found, was, while very interesting and obviously much needed, it was hard for investors to get behind that and understand where the return on investment was coming or how it was coming. So, we partnered up when he noticed how focused on infrastructure I was and recognizing that infrastructure is actually quite bankable. Why is it that we have such a mature real estate development system? Anywhere in the world, you can go and these, and this is something that you know probably much better than I, it’s because infrastructure is easy to see a return on. It’s what’s the next step after that right? How do we care for these properties that are built and how do we care for the lives of the people that are living within them?

Eve: [00:12:59] Yeah, how do you make sure the infrastructure that’s built is appropriate for them as well, right?

Adam: [00:13:04] Absolutely.

Eve: [00:13:05] Yeah. Interesting. So, you’re a start-up and you’re evolving quickly by the sounds of it, which is great. Start-ups need to be flexible or they’re doomed, I think.

Adam: [00:13:16] Yep, yep.

Eve: [00:13:18] I mean, if you were to talk about your big, hairy, audacious goals for the next five years, what would they be?

Adam: [00:13:24] That’s exciting, yeah. To go from working from the workforce development advocate role to now, where we want to be our own fund, has actually happened very quickly. But that’s ultimately where we’re going because we recognize that, and I think a lot of other organizations that are in the regeneration space and in the social impacts space, recognize how important it is to be able to fund the projects and the partners that you’re starting to work with.

Adam: [00:13:57] And so until we get there, we are advisors and we’re connecting great projects to great investors. But in order to do that and because it’s the world of regeneration and those are the funds that we’re targeting, so social impacting yes, regenerative impact funding. There’s not a lot of projects that are at least considered regenerative and so, there are a handful of organizations that are trying to help these projects become regenerative. And I say that from a collaborative perspective, right? So, I recognize that there is a competitive way of looking at this in a collaborative way and honestly, we’re talking about things like skilled labor shortage or the housing crisis. Rather than be competitive, we’d much rather be collaborative and so, we spoke to a fantastic organization called Metabolic based out of the Netherlands just earlier this week, and they’re much further along than we are, at least from the, you know, the regenerative acceleration perspective. And it was just great. Yeah, go ahead.

Eve: [00:15:08] Explain to me what regenerative means here, the way you’re using it.

Adam: [00:15:13] I’ve been using it and I’ve been writing some articles about it and trying to campaign these ideas, at least in a way that my clients, which were all like builders, so it would resonate with them. And so, I was using the term as regenerative housing. So, a regenerative housing project is a housing project that produces positive impact on local economy, environment and society. So, what does that mean? So that means that, let’s say we build a development and there are 60 homes in it. Maybe they’re multi use, maybe they’re multifamily but it’s the housing project. And so, one of the ways that we can have positive impact on the environment, and many of your listeners are probably very familiar with sustainable building practices, so essentially using materials that don’t hurt the Earth any more than it already has, right? So, using lighting that doesn’t use as much electricity or, you know, using insulation that doesn’t, you know, overuse energy as well. There are great technologies that can be used that actually rebuild. So, for example, there’s concrete that can be used that actually sequesters carbon from the air, right? You can have a micro-grid in a development that produces enough energy for the whole development. These are just examples. But that would be positive impact on the environment.

Adam: [00:16:45] In the same way, you’d have positive impact on society. So, you can have positive impact on society by using a housing project as a means of training local folks who had not known how to do any of these tasks to build this project prior to the project. Now this society walks away with a positive impact. Now they had training and they’ve been up skilled. And likewise, I had mentioned maintenance before. Maintenance is huge. And I think for a lot of builders and developers, it’s not always, or at least it hasn’t traditionally been, a part of the conversation. It was like, build as much as you can, build the best product you can, but then pass the keys over to the new tenant or the new owner and go after the next one.

Eve: [00:17:32] Or a property manager.

Adam: [00:17:33] Or a property manager. Absolutely. So, what we’re proposing is, for example, every housing project should also come with creating a new market. So, a new market for home maintenance, let’s say, or perhaps there is a social, you know, an incubator for social enterprise that was created for housing projects. Yeah.

Eve: [00:17:54] We can think of buildings and real estate as things that can just spawn all sorts of other good things if we just are thoughtful about it, right?

Adam: [00:18:05] Absolutely. Yeah, that’s the idea.

Eve: [00:18:07] I think I heard you say you want to build your own fund as well. Is that right?

Adam: [00:18:12] Yeah. And I am not a finance person. I’m not an investor. And so, for me to say something like that is pretty ambitious. Fortunately, I’m surrounding myself with some smart folks who understand that world. But I very much come from the, you know, the operations side of things and the strategy side for builders. You know, like I said, when I first met our current client who’s based in Nigeria now, they first said Adam, you know, one of the biggest things we need is, is access to money. And that was like, yeah, no, that makes sense. And so, who knows where that’ll take us?

Eve: [00:18:49] Well, it took me to Small Change because I was pretty much in the same. But maybe it’s not about access to money, it’s about access to the right money or money that understands these projects.

Adam: [00:18:59] Oh, yes. Very good point.

Eve: [00:19:01] That’s a little bit harder, right?

Adam: [00:19:03] Absolutely. You know, like I mentioned, I’m in the Silicon Valley and here the D.C. culture is pretty strong. It’s, it’s very pervasive and it is sort of how people just think in general, you know, what a successful investment is or what a smart investment is. How quickly can you grow your users? And when it comes to development, especially social impact, you can’t really take that lens. So, you’re right, you need a different category of investment or socially minded investors.

Eve: [00:19:38] That’s right. OK, so what’s your background? You touched on it. I’m wondering how you got to this place.

Adam: [00:19:47] You know, I was a student of economics and geology and local economic policy, economic development policy as an undergrad. After school, I taught English and traveled and got into construction much later. I did social service, you know, social, I did case management after 9/11 in New York.

Eve: [00:20:09] It’s all coming together now, right?

Adam: [00:20:13] Exactly. And so know, I grew up in a family of builders. My father’s and electrician, grandfather a carpenter, you know, there’d always been that understanding. And I, I missed out on it as a young person, although I was always around it. And so, yeah, after college and while I was in grad school, after I was doing social work, I took a job as a carpenter’s apprentice and it, it really took off. The Bay Area, as you must know, is a great place to be in the trades because there’s a huge demand for housing and construction and there’s actually quite a low supply of skilled workers here, at least skilled construction work.

Eve: [00:20:56] I think that’s true everywhere. So, you know, I’ve been a contractor myself and finding good anything is really difficult.

Adam: [00:21:04] Yeah, I actually had worked for a prop tech company just a couple years ago that was based in Toronto, and I helped them launch their San Francisco office. And what they had noticed right away, though, was still quite a difference between quality of responsiveness by contractors and subcontractors here in the Bay Area, you know, the demand is so high, people don’t even have to be that responsive. And yet the rates are so high that you don’t have to try that hard to, you know, report on the progress of your work or have any kind of budget update for people, because you there’s too much work.

Eve: [00:21:45] Wow. Yeah, that’s kind of a sad statement.

Adam: [00:21:48] It is a statement. And I certainly any local carpenters that are in the Bay Area listening to me don’t get offended. But I mean, it’s just a simple fact. There’s so much work.

Eve: [00:22:00] Do you think socially responsible real estate is necessary in today’s development landscape?

Adam: [00:22:06] I mean, I think so. If we’re hoping to reduce the kind of vulnerabilities that we’re all quite aware of now, you know, all being in shelter-in-place for the last couple of months, every one of the clients that I work with here in the Bay Area has been rethinking strategy. So, one of the assumptions, or one of the conclusions that people are coming to is that, the general like extractive approach of just producing as many products as possible and getting as much volume of work done as possible is not…you know, because once things shut down or, you know, once there’s another market shock, you know, if your only tool is to, is volume, well, then you’ve got, you’re little bit vulnerable. But if you are building relationships and are able to leverage those relationships to activities, you’re likely going to be in a just more resilient place. And that’s, that’s where the social impact piece really needs to be a part of people’s business models.

Eve: [00:23:08] Yeah, I do agree. So then, are there any current trends in housing development that interest you the most, or you think might have the most legs for rapidly filling the current affordable housing need?

Adam: [00:23:22] Well, there’s two I would say. I love seeing the new technologies and the companies that are bringing the vertically integrated solution to the market. It makes them more agile and they’re certainly able to bring a sense of client experience to the whole pipeline and the whole process. The other piece, though, is what I mentioned earlier about the need for projects to never really end. And so, you had mentioned property management and the more and more we see builders working with, or developing their own in-house property management, or even their own in-house development arms, that lifecycle really shouldn’t be ending when the project is done. And we’re starting to see that happening. There’s a great company out of San Mateo called VEEV. And, you know, they’re their own investor, they’re their own builder, and they’re their own clients. So, they’ll never not own these homes. Or if they do it, maybe it’s a co-ownership approach. They’re always going to be caring for these places.

Adam: [00:24:29] And so, there’s new models to ownership that are also happening. There’s a great organization called EBPREC, East Bay Permanent Residents, or Real Estate Collective, I think they’re called, and they’re trying to force the conversation about what homeownership means. And is it possible to have land without landlords? And so, these are signals, I think, that the trends towards long-term ownership of the project by, let’s say, a builder or a developer and real ownership by people as opposed to just affordable housing that is ultimately just cheaper housing, is certainly a healthier way. And the conversation around resiliency, that’s, those make me feel pretty positive.

Eve: [00:25:15] Yeah, I think I’m hearing a theme here. Everything co. Co-designing, co-creation, co-ownership. Yeah, that’s definitely a pretty strong trend at the moment. And then like, we touched on investment and I’m just wondering if you’ve had thoughts about how we might incentivize investors to invest first and foremost in impactful projects and housing.

Adam: [00:25:41] So I think that if we’re talking about encouraging traditional investors, conventional investors to consider social impact investment in housing, is that kind of where you’re going with your comment?

Eve: [00:25:56] There’s a difference between an investor just wanting a return and an investor who cares about the triple bottom line and impact and that their dollars are making a difference. I think the first group is still much larger than the second group, right? And for you, your fund to be successful, you need to find investors who care as much as you do.

Adam: [00:26:20] So, there are probably two ways that those kinds of investors might be motivated and encouraged. One is, unfortunately, scenarios like the current pandemic and other market shocks. But even prior to that, I’ve heard of investors who just say: Oh, you know what? We were going to invest this project when we thought the market was telling us this. But now the market is telling us something else. So, we’re actually not going to fund your company anymore or we’re not going to fund this initiative, which we’ve been guiding you on for so many years. And that’s traditional economics and I think the more and more they recognize that market shocks continue to present themselves, they should probably realize that these external forces are sending a message that maybe the quick return is not wise and it’s more about the long return. And so that’s one there’s the external influence of the market shock.

Adam: [00:27:19] And I think the other is campaigning and education and conversation. And I use the co word there so, I think you’ll probably recognize again with my trend here, but.

Eve: [00:27:32] A couple more co’s, right?

Adam: [00:27:33] It’s, it’s honestly, though, it forces us to recognize that there is an ecosystem where a lot of interdependencies exist. Everything from air to water to power to shelter to education and health and wellbeing. And how all of these depend on each other actually presents, I would think, great opportunities for investors because we no longer have to rely on the network effects of one product. Rather, you can rely on the natural interdependent effects of the larger ecosystem. But again, that comes through co-design and collaboration.

Eve: [00:28:18] Yeah, that’s right.

Adam: [00:28:19] How do you get an investor to, to be open to that. It will probably take some time.

Eve: [00:28:24] Yes, yeah. So, I’m going to go back to the beginning where we were talking about housing and just ask you a couple wrap-up questions. And one is, you know, the big one. Where do you think, I think I know the answer, but where do you think the future of affordable housing really lies? I mean, we have a huge problem to solve and I just got a lot bigger, unexpectedly.

Adam: [00:28:46] Yeah, I know. And I’m glad you mentioned that, because I’ve also seen people, you know, online kind of touting that the pandemic hasn’t affected housing and that, you know, where the strongest, most resilient industry. And so, I’m glad you brought that up. I think when we talk about affordable housing, what we often see in, Oakland is an example but there, I’m sure there are plenty of other examples out your way and in other parts of the country that you’re aware of, while, yes, affordable housing is important, the way in which affordable housing is happening in the mainstream tends to still be quite extractive. And so, that approach is, OK, I’m going to put out an RFP and I’m going to, you know, maybe as a city government, and I’m going to receive a bunch of proposals. I’m going to look for the cheapest or I’m going to look for the one with the best return and we’re going to go along with that project. And then you get a whole bunch of people protesting or you don’t get re-elected as mayor or city council because you backed a, you know, an affordable housing developer who ended up actually just building something for entry level tech professionals.

Adam: [00:30:02] And so, I guess that would be one of the key factors there for, you know, what’s to come. How open are some of the local governments to rethinking what affordable housing really means? It means accessibility to housing. And one suggestion is using a model similar to ours. There are other models out there that are great, but aligning the investor with the technology that’s being used, with the community that it’s supposed to be serving, with partners who are going to be involved and looking for, it’s not a zero sum game, you’re looking for a win-win all the way around.

Eve: [00:30:45] That’s had work but worthwhile, right?

Adam: [00:30:48] Right, that’s what makes it worthwhile, I think.

Eve: [00:30:50] So then, final question. What’s next for you and for the Center as things evolve.

Adam: [00:30:57] Gosh. Well, call me next week and you might get a different answer. No, I hope not, because I am getting a little bit of, there is some fatigue with the rethinking but it’s all a part of the process, I guess. I think over the next year, there are five projects that we’re on right now. India, Nepal, Nigeria, Venezuela and California. There are five projects that are in a very initial stage of building the model and bringing everybody together and looking at the investor relationships. And so, within the next year, you know, we would love to be actually moving forward with the introduction of the social enterprises, the locally informed and locally co-produced campaigning of education around the regenerative projects in these places. And obviously, the building of the. The building tends to be the shortest segment of a project in a regenerative project. And so, we certainly would love to see that.

Adam: [00:32:03] And at the same time, we’re exploring this idea of what we’re calling a regenerative core, or a re-gen core of a youth program that can be brought into universities, high schools, where we can spark this similar conversation about how might you be able to get involved in a social enterprise start-up in your community that helps bring more access to housing? You know, that’s on the agenda for this next year. And along the way, we’ll be gathering lots of data and hopefully using that data to influence great next steps along the way.

Eve: [00:32:48] Well, it sounds like you’ll be really busy. And thank you very much for joining me. I’ll be really interested to see some of the outcomes soon.

Adam:[00:32:57] I would love to, to keep in touch with you, Eve and the work that Small Change is doing, I’m so impressed with, seen some of your old videos and speaking in different places around the world and the projects that are coming up. So, I do hope to stay in touch with you guys as well.

Eve: [00:33:15] Well, that would be fabulous. Thank you so much.

Adam: [00:33:18] All right. My pleasure. Have a wonderful day.

Eve: [00:33:34] That was Adam Sgrenci. Adam is building a new organization focused on human capital. Instead of just figuring out how to build more affordable housing, the conversations he leads are meant to encourage communities to plan their own destinies through co-design, co-creation, co-production and co-ownership. You can find out more about impact real estate investing and access the show notes for today’s episode at my website rethinkrealestateforgood.co. 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: [00:34:18] Thank you so much for spending your time with me today. And thank you, Adam, for sharing your thoughts. We’ll talk again soon but for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

Image courtesy of Adam Sgrenci 

The mobility landscape.

Mobility and transportation are inextricably linked to real estate and land use. Why?  Because the largest proportion of most people’s incomes are spent on these two things alone. This is why the demand for walkable urban neighborhoods just keeps growing. But mobility is all about volumetrics. In dense urban areas, there are limiting factors to how many people you can move and how quickly.

The question is, how do you create a system that lets people live where they want with a good quality of life, affordably and with greater access to jobs? Solving this problem will help to solve the affordable housing crisis. Just becoming a one-car family, instead of a two-car family can save around $150,000. And if you can walk to shop for groceries, and there is transport to get you to work, you might opt to have no car at all.

Reallocating space

The ability to move people relies on the physical landscape. If all the lanes in a street are used for cars that only carry one or two people, we can’t move very many people. And new modes of transport like e-scooters and bike shares need safe space to be successful. Further, cities want to get people out of cars for numerous other reasons. It’s expensive to give over valuable land to cars. They take up a lot of space and they make our air unhealthy to breathe.

The reallocation of our streets has already begun.  Cities are narrowing their streets, adding bike lanes and closing some to pedestrian traffic only. This movement is gaining momentum, and even more quickly since the coronavirus shutdown.

Technology

At the same time there’s a technology revolution going on that has reached the mobility sector. GPS technology, electrification of cars, enhanced cell phone networks and even solar energy are powering a transformation in mobility. Data will help to harmonize seemingly disparate transportation modes. One example is Los Angeles, where the Department of Transportation is using data to successfully manage the addition of more than 30,000 scooters to its streets.

Soon we’ll have dockless rentable scooters, autonomous vehicles and mobility services that will seamlessly combine transit services for users. Pittsburgh is already creating a first-of-its-kind, mobility-as-a-service system. Diverse mobility services will be organized into a one-stop transit app, along with physical hubs. Users will be able to seamlessly opt for a variety of transit options to get them from A to B.

Joining Forces

This mobility revolution ultimately depends on strong public-private partnerships with a sharing of the risks and rewards. Many cities already work with the private sector on sharing data effectively for planning and operating systems. At the same time venture capital, private dollars, are being invested into mobility solutions. These private companies need government support to be successful, from the building of a physical landscape that supports them to concessions for operating services that support their citizens.

Gabe Klein has spent his career specializing in all facets of urban mobility, both within government and as an entrepreneur. He sees the exchange of ideas between the public and private sectors, two very different cultures, as essential to solving the major problems of our times.

Listen in to my interview with Gabe.

Image from pxhere, licensed CC0

Of service. In Erie.

Christina Marsh is the Chief Community and Economic Development Officer at Erie Insurance.

Immersed in her organization’s community development work, much of it in their home base of Erie, in Pennsylvania, Chris works directly with CEO Timothy NeCastro to lead and plan targeted revitalization efforts. She helped create the Erie Downtown Development Corp (EDDC), also supported the creation of a related equity fund that has raised more than $27 million dollars towards downtown development. And now EDDC is tackling the redevelopment of four blocks in Downtown Erie, in large part because of her efforts.

“I love building new,” she says, “In my career, it’s all about building new. It’s about helping others build their own competence, their own capabilities, helping other women succeed in business and growing their own leadership. There is always that teacher in me.”

Having been at Erie Insurance since 1994, Chris has served as senior vice president of their Enterprise Portfolio Management Office, senior vice president of Human Resources, and led Erie Insurance’s implementation of Sarbanes-Oxley as vice president of Financial Reporting. Before that she worked at Ernst & Young, where she earned her CPA. Chris holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Mercyhurst University, where she now serves as a Board Trustee. She is on the executive committee of the Erie Regional Chamber and Growth Partnership Board of Directors, and was appointed to the PA Early Learning Investment Commission as a regional Commissioner, advocating for quality early learning in the community.

Insights and Inspirations

  • Erie Insurance believes in service, and so does Chris. They have a corps of volunteers ready to spring into action. And they have seeded a community emergency fund.
  • Chris and her team spent one and a half years studying Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC) as a model for the Erie Downtown Development Corporation.
  • Erie is down on itself, so the work of building it back requires more than just dollars.
  • Bruce Katz thinks Erie’s downtown is a proxy for the nation during the Covid19 crisis.  

Information and Links

  • Take at peek at Erie’s comprehensive plan, Erie Refocused.
  • Learn more about the EDDC here, which Chris is very proud to have helped create. 
  • Chris admires the work of the Milton Hershey School because she believes in the power of education.
Read the podcast transcript here

Eve Picker: [00:00:13] Hi there, thanks so much for joining me today for the latest episode of Impact Real Estate Investing.

Eve: [00:00:20] My guest today is Christina Marsh, chief community and economic development officer at Erie Insurance. Erie insurance has played an unusually large role in their community. In her role, Christina has helped to create a community development corporation, an equity fund that is now at 27 million dollars and has also been involved in the purchase and development planning for four blocks of Erie’s lovely downtown. Christina, first and foremost, sees her role at Erie Insurance as one of service to the community they are located in.

Eve: [00:01:02] Be sure to go to rethinkrealestateforgood.co to find out more about Christina 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: [00:01:26] Hello, Christina. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Christina Marsh: [00:01:29] Hi Eve, thank you. Thanks for having me.

Eve: [00:01:32] I’ve heard and wondered about Erie Insurance and the company’s role in economic development in a boom that’s really underway in Erie and I wondered who’s behind it? Is that you?

Christina: [00:01:46] There’s many of us actually behind it. And what I can say about Erie Insurance, I’ve actually worked with Erie Insurance for over 25 years now, and just a couple of weeks ago we celebrated our 95th year anniversary as an organization. Our founder, H.O. Hirt, always instilled in our core values and belief system in being, above all, in service and not just service to our agents and our customers and employee to employee, but certainly to the communities that were a part of. Erie is our namesake and our hometown and has been for 95 years so we have a very strong historian, civic leader, community advocate in our chairman of the board, Mr Tom Hagen, who’s certainly behind a lot of the visionary efforts that are happening here in Erie and certainly on behalf of Erie Insurance. And our CEO, Tim NeCastro, this is his hometown. He became our CEO a few years back as all of this new energy, this renaissance, was beginning. So really, the timing was right for Erie Insurance to come in and take a bit of a leadership role. We are now the largest employer in Erie County and the only Fortune 500 company that’s headquartered here so we take that responsibility very seriously.

Eve: [00:03:10] And so what’s, what’s your role at Erie Insurance?

Christina: [00:03:14] So, I am the community and economic development officer and when Tim came into the role as CEO, he and I had worked together over the years in all different capacities, even at Ernst & Young before we both joined the Erie Insurance many years ago. And he invited me in to help with all that was happening in the community. We do a lot of convening and coordinating, not just of our time, but of our resources with others so this way, as community leaders, are collaborating like never before, on public and private sector sides, that we’re also able to multiply the impact of all the investments that we’re making as well.

Eve: [00:03:54] Wow. So, just tell me a little bit about Erie. Actually, I’ve been there. I know a little bit about it, but not a lot. Anyone is listening may not have been there.

Christina: [00:04:02] Sure. You know, Erie, Pennsylvania, is the fourth largest city up in this north-western corner of Pennsylvania. We are the only port here in Pennsylvania with a beautiful lake and bay-front, which is one of our greatest assets that we’re leveraging. We’ve had quite a bit of investment, private investment, over the past several years, Erie Insurance being one. We are located right in the core, downtown. We have over 40 acres there. There’s a beautiful public square right in the core that we consider the beating heart of the region. It’s called Perry Square. It’s been beautified, lots of investment has been made there as well. So, it’s really centered on a strong core. We have two health systems that are strong, Allegheny Health and UPMC. UPMC is anchored right downtown as well with Erie Insurance, as well as Gannon University on the west side of the square. So, we have three strong anchors in our downtown. So, we have four universities and one of the largest medical schools, LECOM, here in Erie as well.

Christina: [00:05:08] So we have many rich assets, a mayor who took office in early 2018 that has a strong vision for Erie being a community of choice. So, he’s leading that effort with a strong balance of embracing the diverse cultures that are here. We have, in the city, we have about 20 percent that are new Americans, those that have resettled here. So, we’re embracing those communities that are, you know, starting their own rich cultural aspects, as well as ensuring that we create and continue to build upon a strong and healthy and vibrant downtown and bay-front. We do have a lot of rich assets and things to do here in the community that’s very generous and a lot of grit to it. We’ve certainly seen some of the decline, though, as many Rust Belt communities have over the years. We’ve lost, you know, 40,000 people in the city of Erie over the past six decades for various reasons and so some of the infrastructure over the past few decades has certainly declined. And we are working now to really reinvest in that infrastructure, whether it be our public schools or our streets or buildings that have really cool and unique architecture.

Eve: [00:06:30] So it’s a pretty typical Rust Belt story. Loss of jobs, loss of people, loss of tax base and declining infrastructure as a result.

Christina: [00:06:40] Absolutely.

Eve: [00:06:41] You didn’t mention one of my very favorite assets in Erie, and that is Presque Isle, which has to be one of the most beautiful state parks I’ve ever been to, one of my favorite places.

Christina: [00:06:51] You’re right, it is. I think sometimes, you know, I’m not from Erie originally, I grew up in Long Island and when I had family and friends come and visit, then we go to Presque Isle or look out over the lake there. They don’t imagine it to be as beautiful as it is. Of course, you know, it’s a free public park, which is also amazing.

Eve: [00:07:11] Yeah, it is amazing.

Christina: [00:07:12] And the traffic isn’t nearly what it is on the Long Island beaches so it’s a great surprise and certainly, yes, a beautiful asset.

Eve: [00:07:21] It is. I’ve enjoyed it for many, many years. I think the state parks in Pennsylvania are altogether gorgeous, but that has to be the most beautiful. What’s a typical project that you might become involved in, in Erie?

Christina: [00:07:34] The first one that we took a leadership role on was the creation of the Erie Downtown Development Corp. We had eight community leaders in late 2017. They really took the Erie Refocused plan to heart. We had a comprehensive plan at that time that the community had built together with a consultant, Charles Buki. There was something called a Metro 100 at our Jefferson Educational Society, it’s a think tank here in Erie. And our CEO was there, Tim NeCastro. Afterwards, he spoke to Buki and said, you know, here’s six hundred million dollars of, you know, work ahead of Erie and this comprehensive plan for the city, where do you even begin? And Buki recommended, of course, starting in an area of strength, which is our core downtown, and build out from there and stay focused. He also suggested that that group take a look at 3CDC in Cincinnati. And so, there was a small contingent called the Cincinnati 8 of our business and community leaders, our Erie Community Foundation leader’s been a strong partner in this, and off they went to Cincinnati to talk with Steve Leeper, who I believe you would know from Pittsburgh days.

Eve: [00:08:53] Yeah, I do and there is the Tom Murphy connection, right?

Christina: [00:08:58] Exactly. Steve Leeper’s been very generous with his time and resources so that we could accelerate creating a similar model here in Erie. Definitely a different scale and a different starting place from where Steve was at that time. That’s where, for the first year and a half, Eve, that’s where myself and my team spent most of our time in helping to bring leaders around the table, create the model for the Erie Downtown Development Corp., a non-profit, and then really began raising funds to help fill gaps, particularly in these early days as we patiently await the building and the return of the market. You know, we raised over 27 million dollars. We knew that we needed collaboration, Erie Insurance could not do this alone. We needed the support and buy-in from the community. We really needed to create new hope for Erie. Our mindsets, we’re still very down on ourselves. We had a lot of national press that was really taking advantage of the Rust Belt story in the negative sense and we really wanted to turn that around to create hope and optimism for our community and change the mindset around to: it’s not only okay to love Erie, we do love Erie and we’re ready to do something about it, and do something about it for everyone for generations to come. And that’s really a lot of what we did in those early years.

Eve: [00:10:20] So the Downtown Development Corp., if I’m correct, actually has purchased a block, maybe a block of property, to do a rather large development in the core of downtown, is that correct?

Christina: [00:10:32] That’s right, Eve. Actually, there is a block, it’s right on North Park Row. So, Perry Square that I referred to earlier, that is right on Perry Square. But they’ve also purchased properties in, actually, a four-block square in that downtown corridor right on our main thoroughfare of State Street, which is really key. So, yes, and that first project that you’re referring to is on North Park Row. It’s a beautiful, older, historic building, comes with some challenges because it does need a lot of work. At the same time, we are in one of the poorest zip codes in the state and in the country. It is in a designated census tract for Opportunity Zone. And so, we know that it’s also in a designated food desert. It’s intended to be first floor food hall, urban market to create food supply and resources for those that live and work right in the downtown area and become a destination, we hope, for those that want to come downtown and visit it and be a part of the revitalization effort.

Eve: [00:11:39] You have the buildings. You have the funding. What’s the timeline? What’s the plan for starting construction?

Christina: [00:11:46] Yep. So, construction has begun. The EDDC actually began really pulling out a lot of what was in those older buildings and starting to repair and ready them for the food hall on the first floor. Not much has been done on the upper floors yet, the apartments and so forth. But they invited an application process of having vendors apply to be a part of one of the vendors in the food hall.

Eve: [00:12:14] Oh wow.

Christina: [00:12:15] And they received over 20 applications and they’re interviewing now to narrow down to nine. They really wanted to be diverse. We’ve done many surveys and community meetings and trying to study what the residents that live there today and employees that work, you know, that come downtown and work every day, are most interested in and are really trying to meet the diverse needs of our community. So, yeah, by first or second quarter of next year, we should have an opening of our first food hall right downtown. So, we’re very excited about that.

Eve: [00:12:52] That is very exciting to see a dream, sort of, become reality, right?

Christina: [00:12:56] Absolutely.

Eve: [00:12:57] I think, what I’ve seen of the Erie plan, it’s a big plan and what are the hoped-for outcomes?

Christina: [00:13:04] One of the beautiful things about this role, community and economic development for Erie Insurance, is that we participate in many different aspects of creating a vibrant community. And, you know, some of the overall goals are ensuring that we have jobs and access to jobs ready in the next three to five years through the work that our Chamber of Commerce is doing under new leadership. That we are creating a ready pipeline for workforce so this way, those in the communities that might not be ready or have access to education or a hands-on training, can have that access and are ready when the jobs are ready. So, we’re matching the needs of the employers with those that are in our community today. You know, success for us looks like just an overall improvement in the quality of life. And that’s measured in so many different ways, not just the vibrancy of the downtown, the buildings are the tools to support that. What’s the human experience? What are our community members really experiencing? While we’re growing for the new and bringing in new businesses and the targeted industries to really leverage the assets that we were just talking about that are right here in Erie today.

Eve: [00:14:21] Well, this is not a small task that you’ve taken on. And I’m, I’m wondering what background led you here?

Christina: [00:14:30] Well, it’s been very interesting because it’s not one, you know, that my, you know, 20-year-old self would have imagined in any capacity, I’m certain. But, you know, all of the experiences that I’ve had in the past, whether it was through my finance role at Erie Insurance, Ernst Young or otherwise, through my people role, you know, leading H.R. for a Fortune 500 company, certainly teaches you a lot about appreciating that people aspect of what we do every day and, you know, our culture is built around being, above all, in service, and we only do that through the human touch. So that’s an important element of who we are as an organization. So, you take all of those experiences and learnings and, and I love learning and building new, that’s what I’ve done in my career. So, to give back to a community that I’ve been a part of and have raised three children in, my husband and I, I mean, it’s been such an exciting time for Erie and certainly personally in my career.

Eve: [00:15:32] I’m smiling over here because it sounds great. So, you know, what I’m most interested in is impact and socially responsible real estate. And I’m wondering what socially responsible means to you, and especially in this context.

Christina: [00:15:50] We actually, we talk quite a bit about that, Eve, because we’ve used the phrase that you hear a lot “the rising tide lifts all boats”. And we say that, and I think in the beginning it sounded like, you know, if we could redevelop the downtown core and have that ripple effect through other neighborhoods and certainly out throughout the region, that that would be great for all parts of our community. And that’s true. At the same time, when our mayor came on, Mayor Schember, he shone a light on where there were disparities and where there were deep-rooted strongholds within different minority communities. And he actually launched an initiative called the People’s Supper Initiative. And these types of suppers occur through, all throughout the country. We participated in that with himself and his administration. He was serious about understanding some of the root causes of some of the hurts and perceptions and realities of different communities, the African-American, Latino and new Americans, and really rallied behind let’s have suppers and understand, you know, where we are as a community and let’s build trust, so that as we move forward as a community and building the new, that no one gets left behind. And that’s been a serious attention spot for him and if you were to ask the mayor what his number one priority is, and we are hoping he has his 12 years in office as he would like, that he wants to eliminate prejudice and disparity in areas. And that’s a that’s a tall order, we understand.

Eve: [00:17:43] A very big goal, yeah.

Christina: [00:17:44] Very tall. But because we come at all of this development, whether it’s the chamber on the economic development side, whether it’s for the EDDC on the real estate development side or other organizations, including our own, we come at it with a balanced perspective of, yes, we know we want a world class downtown and bay-front. Yes, we want to create a community of choice for everyone. But we do it knowing that we also need to embrace our diverse cultures. And I think that balance point always has given us pause to think, do we have the right voices around the table? Do we have our traditional leaders? Where do we need more input from the neighborhood centers, from those civic leaders? How are we ensuring that we are bringing the entire community forward through all the efforts and all the investments that are being made? So, it’s something that’s important to us. I wouldn’t say we have it all figured out yet.

Eve: [00:18:47] Well, does anyone?

Christina: [00:18:48] But we are paying attention to it.

Eve: [00:18:52] Well, that’s great. That’s a difficult problem to solve anywhere in the world. Are there any current trends in economic or community development that you’re following or that you think are very important?

Christina: [00:19:04] One of the trends that we think for us is important is ensuring that we stay true to Erie Pennsylvania. Honoring our past and all the assets that we have to leverage, while building for the future. We hear a lot about, yes, you know, we have access to federal and state resources and, you know, look to those at the right time, but really taking a local approach. We follow Bruce Katz quite a bit. You know, he, of course, talks a lot about the New Localism. He also has been a strong partner the past few years. But really taking that local approach to: what assets do we have, where are our challenges, where are our opportunities and how can we move Erie forward with those assets in mind? And not trying to be something that we’re not. We expect that that will help us be more successful. We’ve learned a lot over the last several decades, certainly over the last several years. We continue to study other communities like Pittsburgh, like Cincinnati, Buffalo, others in our region. But we do think that that local approach and collaboration is going to be key for us.

Eve: [00:20:18] Do you think it’s a moral imperative that large companies like Erie Insurance get involved in building better communities where they are located?

Christina: [00:20:28] Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, it’s always been part of our DNA from our humble beginnings 95 years ago that we would be, above all, in service throughout the communities that we’re a part of. At the same time, the market is demanding it. So, we see that, even for employees now that are coming in, that they themselves want to be active citizens of the communities that they’re a part of and they expect that the organizations that they work for. So that purpose-driven, balanced with the profit-driven, is becoming more and more important but thankfully for us, that’s just the way we’ve always operated. So, it’s, it’s an easy way for us to think about it, quite honestly.

Eve: [00:21:14] And so, how do you think we need to think about our cities and neighborhoods overall, so that we build better places for everyone?

Christina: [00:21:23] For how we think about it, we think, you know, involving those that are in the community today is really important. You know, when I first came into this role, I thought, well, let’s study these other communities and that worked really well there, let’s bring that here, you know. But people live in neighborhoods today, and each neighborhood is very unique. And to talk with neighbors and understand their needs and build for, you know, a future for them and how that then ripples out to other parts of the community, I think that’s one of the better ways that we can do that and be sure that the resources are available to those that don’t typically have access to resources that they need to move their communities forward. At Erie Insurance we have what’s called the service corps. And we have volunteers at the ready. And non-profits and other organizations make requests for events or even just help in painting a library at a school. And we’ll send employees out. You know, employees are willing and ready, you know, to be sent out to help wherever the need is. So, we’ve really leveraged that as a strong platform.

Eve: [00:22:34] Yeah, that’s really lovely. I also think, sometimes when you look at best-case studies, it can derail you a little bit. I think looking at where your community is and how it should grow can be much more powerful.

Christina: [00:22:50] Yeah, yeah. That’s what we’re finding.

Eve: [00:22:52] Yes. So, I have to ask what’s happening in Erie during this horrible pandemic?

Christina: [00:23:01] For Erie, like many if not all other communities, our first priority was response. Response to those that have some basic needs, because of the loss of jobs or, you know, businesses stopping. And so, we actually participated with our Erie Community Foundation in seeding a Covid19 emergency response fund. To meet child-care needs, basic food needs, shelter for organizations that are on the front lines providing that to our community members. We ended up, in a very short time, being able to support 40 different non-profits with over $670,000 as a collective fund. So, that was our first priority, was certainly the response to those basic needs. Now we’re pivoting to, so what do we look like coming out of the recovery? You know, for all that’s been invested, we had this great and still have a great spirit of collaboration. And thankfully, the health systems, Erie Insurance, we’re weathering this. We’re being very thoughtful about the safety and stability and health of our community members and our employees. At the same time, we don’t want to lose sight that there’s much more ahead for us on the positive. And so, our Chamber is leading a Restart Task Force. We had our first meeting last week and we have, again, through a sense of collaboration, we have non-profit organizations, universities, manufacturers, other business groups at the table with working groups gathering data, baseline data, to figure out where our priorities need to be as we start emerging and recovering from the impacts of this pandemic. So, we’re not standing by. We’re not standing still and we’re working together through it.

Eve: [00:24:51] That’s pretty fabulous. So that, you know, none of us really know what the path forward will look like. I’m sure things will be different, but we’re not exactly sure how. So, I think that’s the best you can do. So, the big final question is, what’s next for you in Erie and Erie insurance?

Christina: [00:25:10] That’s a great question. We are paying attention to what our community is asking for through the work of our community foundation, our Chamber, all of the transformational efforts that are taking place. And we’re sort of taking the lead of the community and we’re the next big need may actually be. We created our 50-million-dollar Opportunity Zone Fund last year. So, we’ve been, actually, taking a look at deals related to start-ups that are another part of the engine of a vibrant community. We ourselves, at Erie Insurance, we were a start-up, you know. 95 years ago. H.O. started this insurance company and look at where we are today. So, we know that there are many examples like that across the country and we hope to be a part of restarting the economy for generations to come. So that’s, that’s where we will be.

Eve: [00:26:09] That’s pretty fabulous. Well, thank you very much for talking with me. It actually sounds like you’re having a lot of fun in amongst the challenges, because challenges are fun, right?

Christina: [00:26:18] Yeah.

Eve: [00:26:21] I really hope that continues and I, every time I go to Erie, I do see change and I’m looking forward to seeing more. Thank you very much.

Christina: [00:26:28] That’s great. Thank you, Eve. Appreciate the opportunity. Alright, take care.

Eve: [00:26:41] That was Christina Marsh. In a recent interview Christina said “I love building new. In my career it’s all about building new. It’s about helping others build their own competence, their own capabilities, helping other women succeed in business and growing their own leadership. There is always that teacher in me.” Christina’s skills, which are formidable, are cloaked in her humility. First and foremost, she sees her role as one of service to the community.

Eve: [00:27:14] You can find out more about impact real estate investing and access the show notes for today’s episode at my website, rethinkrealestateforgood.co. 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: [00:27:34] Thank you so much for spending your time with me today. And thank you, Christina, for sharing your thoughts. We’ll talk again soon but for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

Image courtesy of Christina Marsh

One project at a time

Pittsburgh, a beautiful city at the confluence of three rivers, once had twice the population it has now. De-industrialization and loss of employment, namely the collapse of the steel industry, saw a rapid decline in population during the 1980s. A wealthy industrial history left Pittsburgh rich with culture and endowed with medical centres, museums, parks and research centres, but a shrinking population brought with it an economic trough.

Since then there has been an amazing transformation. The economy has diversified – regionally as well as locally – and there are now five new primary industry sectors: financial services, IT, energy, advanced manufacturing and healthcare. This diversification is especially important in making a robust economy that can withstand recessionary periods.

Still, for Pittsburgh and the region, lack of population growth is holding back an expansion in the economy.

How do you help an economy expand?

One person, Lance Chimka, thinks about this 24/7. Lance is director of Allegheny County’s Economic Development Department in Pittsburgh. They have a mission to work on the macro economic health of the city and the region. Lance is optimistic about the future of the region’s economy.  And he is squarely focused on this goal – to build a diverse and growing regional economy and to create healthy and vibrant communities.

The department invests in the areas of housing, industrial and commercial development, infrastructure development and parks and recreation to name just a few. In particular, Lance sees opportunity in the intersection points between AI, robotics and advanced manufacturing, and between energy and healthcare.  And he has a personal goal too. He wants to make the public sector more user-friendly and more efficient and he intends to work on that as well.

“I am very project focused. And I believe that markets are built one great project at a time.” Lance Chimka.

Listen to my interview with energetic, people-focussed leader, Lance Chimka, to learn more.

Pennsylvania, Carrie Furnace by Randy Mower, CC BY-SA 4.0