CitySCOPE Podcast

Co-hosts Joanne Jan and Sherry Li are back with our guests Karen Chapple of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto and Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning & Interim Dean of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs to continue our discussion on transit-oriented development (TOD). In episode 5, we dive into one of the hypothesized unintended consequences of TOD - gentrification and displacement. We learn some examples of TOD from outside the US and then Anastasia and Karen share the findings from their research on both residential and commercial gentrification. The episode ends with discussion on warning signs of gentrification and displacement along with strategies to employ once the process has already started in order to preserve affordability.

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Photo Credit: Fruitvale Station Train, Oakland, CA
Photo 88645825 | Transit © Sheila Fitzgerald | Dreamstime.com

The next two episodes feature conversations with Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning & Interim Dean of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, and Karen Chapple of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto. These are two giants in the field of urban planning and innovative scholars in their approach to the study of cities. We will be exploring the pros and cons of transit-oriented development (TOD) as examined in their co-authored book Transit Oriented Displacement or Community Dividends? Understanding the Effects of Smarter Growth on Communities. In episode 4, we learn about the benefits of TOD along with some of the reasons to be cautious about this approach. Our guests share the creative research approaches they developed to study neighborhood change and to engage with communities as part of the research process. Co-hosted by Sherry Li and Joanne Jan, Yale SOM MBAs.

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In episode 3, we speak with Lisa Berglund, Professor of Urban Planning at Dalhousie University to continue our exploration of community benefit agreements. This time, we take a closer look at CBAs in a specific context - Detroit. Detroit was the first U.S. city to have a CBA ordinance requiring CBAs for all development over a certain size. We learn how Detroit utilizes community benefit agreements along with other policies to support accountable economic growth and development. Professor Berglund shares insight from her close study of the case of Detroit and the urban governance design and processes undergirding this inaugural effort to mandate CBAs. Laura Brennan, MBA and Kate Cooney co-host.

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Photo Credit: Photo 184268858 | Joe Louis Fist © Wirestock | Dreamstime.com

Show notes:

1. Lisa Berglund’s faculty website here
2. Dr. Berglund’s 2020 article, “Early Lessons from Detroit’s Community Benefits Ordinance”

In episode 2 of Season 4, we are joined by Virginia Parks, Professor at University of California Irvine, and Roxana Tynan, Executive Director of the Los Angeles Alliance for New Economy (LAANE) for a conversation about community benefit agreements. Steven Waller and Alice Yuan co-host. The episode describes the history and mechanics of CBAs, tracing their roots in early 2000s Los Angeles and how they have evolved over time to be a tool leveraged by city actors to promote equity and opportunity. We learn how the organizing work undergirding CBA activity in the early 2000s in Los Angeles showcased both the possibilities and shortcomings of CBAs and where the work has expanded in the decades since the modern CBA movement was born.

Join us for a great conversation!

Season 4 of the CitySCOPE podcast features conversations with academics, urban planners, developers and community leaders weighing in on different mechanisms to drive more equitable development through infrastructure development. The season is organized around questions such as: How have communities organized to ensure that the community benefits from new development, who speaks for the community in urban governance networks, how can neighborhoods be revitalized without inducing the harms of gentrification and how does childcare fit into the infrastructure conversation? Topics include: community benefits agreements, transportation-oriented development, neighborhood trusts, urban governance networks, developer-led community benefits, and the role of childcare in our national infrastructure.

Episode 1 provides a sneak peek at the voices you'll hear over the season.

Take a listen!

Meeting the Moment with Inclusive Economic Development
Sharing the audio from our first live podcasting event! February 10, 2023 from NXTHVN in Dixwell. To celebrate the bridge from the end of Season 3 to the launch of Season 4, we held a live event bringing together Stanley Tucker, President, CEO and co-founder of Meridian Management Company, Inc (MMG) featured in Season 3 with Adriana Abizadeh, Executive Director, the Kensington Corridor Trust (KCT), featured in upcoming Season 4.

CitySCOPE favorite James Johnson-Piett, Principal and CEO, Urbane Development co-hosted.

The event also features musicians David Chevan and Warren Byrd of The Afro-Semitic Experience.

Hope you enjoy the conversation!

In our final episode for Season 3 of the CitySCOPE podcast, we have a bonus episode produced in collaboration with James Johnson-Piett and Maggie Clark from Urbane, featuring interviews from Urbane's work on the Philadelphia Equitable Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Assessment and Strategy report, completed in May 2021. Over the course of this season, we spoke with researchers, historians, practitioners, and city builders about efforts to support and scale Black-owned and Black-led businesses. In this bonus episode, we hear 10 BIPOC entrepreneurs in Philadelphia share about their entrepreneurial journeys and their views on how cities can create more equitable pathways to support thriving, diverse business founders move their businesses to the next level. Take a listen!

In episode 14 of the CitySCOPE podcast, we speak with Dianna Tremblay and Caron Gugssa-Howard from ICA in Oakland, CA about their work building a more equitable entrepreneurial ecosystem through accelerator and investment fund programing. Topics include: pathways to growth in the dynamic Bay area economy, using a venture-capital CDFI model to develop an accelerator targeting entrepreneurs from low wealth backgrounds, operating an accelerator with attention to both business scaling and the production of good jobs, integrating direct investment with accelerator programming, and developing capital investment vehicles that fit the mission. Join us for a great conversation!

Join us for episode 13 of the CitySCOPE podcast. We speak with Banu Ozkazanc-Pan, Professor of Practice at the School of Engineering and Academic Director of the IE Brown University EMBA program. She is also the Founder and Director of the Venture Capital Inclusion Lab at the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship. In conversation with Kate Cooney, Senior Lecturer at Yale University School of Management, topics include: the role of entrepreneurial ecosystems in a regional economy, research on equity and inclusion in entrepreneurial ecosystems, gender bias in capitalization of start-ups, the role of racial and gender wealth gap in the entrepreneurship journey, practical steps we can take to build more equitable ecosystems, and what’s at stake if we do not do so.

In episode 12 of the CitySCOPE podcast, Kate Cooney, Senior Lecturer at the Yale School of Management, talks with Donna Lecky, JD, MBA, Managing Partner, Health Venture Capital, CEO & Co-Founder, Health Venture and Co-Founder & Board Director of HealthHavenHub, Inc. Donna is also CEO & Founding Member of Women of Color Capital Collective, Inc. Join us for a wide-ranging conversation about Donna’s career path, the founding of Health Venture Capital, Health Venture and HealthHavenHub, the digital health innovation space, and her views on access to capital and the role of networks in successful entrepreneurial outcomes from the venture capital perspective. Join us!