- [Narrator] Production and distribution of City Club forums and Ideas Stream Public Media are made possible by PNC and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland Incorporated.

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to The City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

I'm Dan Moulthrop and I'm chief executive here at The City Club.

I'm a proud member.

Today's July 9th.

Your at the virtual City Club forum.

We're live from the studios of our partner, Ideastream Public Media.

Big thanks to them.

I have to say, this is the second to last time we'll be doing the Friday Forum from the studios of Ideastream Public Media and we are so grateful for their support over these last 16 months.

And I can't wait to see all of you in person, that's coming up soon.

For now though, I'd like to start with a quick question.

If you had just 15 minutes to walk from your front door, where could you walk to and would you?

You see there's this concept in urban planning, the so-called 15-minutes city, some people refer to it as the 20-minute city.

They're just a little slower, but others refer to it as the complete neighborhood.

It's this idea that any resident should be able to get whatever that resident needs groceries, some time in green space, a dry cleaner, with just a short walk or bike ride.

It's a different approach to urban planning that uses the lens of equity to reduce reliance on personal vehicles.

Over the last year, more of us have found ourselves working remotely and at home going on more walks, supporting businesses closer to our homes.

Still some neighborhoods continue to face long standing challenges with walkability, with pedestrian safety and with access to basic retail, a pharmacy, a sandwich shop.

So, is it time to reimagine our cities 15 minutes at a time?

Joining us this afternoon to answer this question, Andre Brumfield.

He is an associate at with cities and urban design and urban design leader and design director and principal at Gensler, which is an urban design studio based in Chicago.

Jason Segedy is also with us.

He's director of planning and urban development at the City of Akron.

And Khrys Shefton, director of real estate development at the Famicos Foundation, which is the community development corporation working in Glenville.

And I want to thank them all for joining us today at The City Club Friday Forum.

You guys with me?

We had some technical issues before.

Are we all on?

- [Andre] We're here.

- [Khrys] Good afternoon.

- Excellent.

Excellent.

Excellent.

Excellent.

So if you want to join our conversation, if you have a question for our panelists, the second half of the program is devoted to questions from all of you.

You can text your question to 330 541 5794.

That's 330 541 5794.

You can also tweet your question @TheCityClub and we will work it back into the program.

So Andre Brumfield, I want to start with you.

Describe what we mean by the 15-minute City or that you refer to it as a 20-minute neighborhood, I think.

- Yeah, and that's the debate off whether it's... (Dan laughing) but the concept of the ideas is of course, as you mentioned, the idea of having, you know, a number of the amenities that you would need in your everyday life are within a 20 minute walk or a 15 minute walk, whether it's a quarter mile or a mile walk of where you do live.

I think, you know, as we've talked about, this is not a new concept, but I think given what we've all experienced over the last 18 months coming on the other side of, or 16 months coming on the other side of the pandemic, it's really made us understand or realize the things that we do have in our neighborhoods and the things that quite frankly, we don't have in our neighborhoods.

As a number of places were shut down and some things and stores and retailers and assets that we've actually lost through the pandemic.

You know, a number of those weren't in some of our neighborhoods and the ones that we did have, you know, those are also negatively impacted.

So when we think about the 20 minute neighborhood, it's really thinking about the idea of having, you know, those assets that we all need, whether you're a couple, family of four, elderly, you know, those things that we actually want and need in our neighborhoods, you know, within reach and access of where we live.

- Andre Brumfield, thank you so much for that description.

I should remind everybody again that Andre Brumfield is a principal at Gensler, which is an urban design firm based in Chicago.

Jason Segedy from the City of Akron, planning director there.

How many Akron residents, Jason live in a 15 minute neighborhood?

- I think most of the residents of the City of Akron do some of the outer neighborhoods closer to some of our suburbs.

It would be a stretch to have a lot of retail or other, you know, land uses people might want to walk to, but we've done a fair amount of analysis of like, we've looked at our parks, for example, of how many people are within a 15 or 20 minute walk and I think it's around 80, 85 percent of the city.

So we've got, you know, it's pretty good coverage as far as things to walk to in Akron.

- But this is definitely something that you are more likely to enjoy if you live in a city, not so much if you live in a suburb or an excerpt.

- Right.

And I think it kind of gets into two questions that we could probably all explore as a group.

You know, there's two components to walkability.

There's one, you know, that's more about the physical infrastructure.

Is it easy to walk?

Are there sidewalks?

Are there adequate crosswalks?

And so forth and then I think the second issue, which is I think a bigger issue in a lot of cities especially with disinvestment that gets into some of the equity questions, is are there things to actually walk to?

So, you know, you'll have some neighborhoods where the infrastructure is very great to walk.

You don't have that many destinations because there's been a lot of disinvestment.

And then in many locations you have the opposite situation, especially in the suburbs where there might be a lot of businesses and activities to walk to, but the built environment is not very conducive to walking.

- No sidewalks.

You've got a strip mall but no sidewalks to get there for instance.

Is that sort of what you were referring to?

- Very common.

Absolutely.

- Jason Segedy is the planning director at the City of Akron and we won't get him started on his point of view on fair lawn, but we will turn now to Khrys Shefton who I think if you're joining us on the live stream and you can find that @cityclub.org you'll see that Khrys is actually joining us from, I believe from Glenville.

From a sidewalk in Glenville.

- No, actually I'm in St. Dusky - Oh you are in St. Dusky?

(Dan laughing) - Yeah, so much to my boyfriend's chagrin I'm on vacation And I'm joining you guys from St Dusky.

- Well, if you are joining us Khrys Shefton from Glenville, from your neighborhood in Glenville, would you describe it as a 15 minute neighborhood?

And also, would you have described it as such 10 years ago?

- I mean, no.

I think, you know, one of the things that's interesting as being a planner is we normally invent new words to say things that should just be.

You should be able to get through a grocery store, you should be able to get to a dry cleaner, you should be able to get the green space.

Whatever you want to call it, 50 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever, the point is people need to be able to live their lives in their neighborhoods.

And so if you can do that in Glenville, but it is difficult to do that without transportation.

And so needing access to a car to be able to access these things make them much more difficult.

And in Glenville, you know, to Jason's point earlier, we have access to things like sidewalks, which is wonderful.

We have access to things by transportation, But what is the state of that infrastructure, right?

So I there's a sidewalk there, but it might be crumbling.

You know, curb cuts from it still exist from houses that have been torn down.

So our issues are not that we don't have these things in our communities.

In a lot of cases the issue is the quality.

- Khrys Shefton is with the Famicos Foundation, a community development corporation that works in the Glenville neighborhood.

And Khrys, I know there's some echo coming back.

We're going to work on trying to eliminate, eliminate all of that to make this conversation a little bit easier for all of us and for you in particular, but also for our listeners.

Again, if you have questions about this idea of the 15 minutes city, you know, that the second half of our program of the Friday Forum is always for you.

So you can text those questions to 330 5415 794 or you can tweet those questions @TheCityClub.

and we will work them into the second half of the program.

Andre Brumfield, this notion of fixing cities or fixing our neighborhoods so that we can have these amenities and the sort of things we love about being human in a city within 15 minutes, within a approximate walk, you have helped communities transform themselves around the country and I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that work either.

Either I know you've done work in Houston and Milwaukee, and you're doing some work in Cleveland right now as well, but maybe some work that's in the rear view mirror where you can tell the story of how those communities have been transformed.

- Well, first I just want to thank you for having me on the show and on the segment.

And yes, we were doing work with the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority in essential neighborhood and working with some group team members, Ideals Engineering as well as Moody Nolan.

But I think one of the things that we talk about, not so much what's been in the rear view mirror in terms of the work that I've been doing, but, you know, when we talk about what's needed to really revitalize neighborhoods and really kind of talk about bringing the fruition, the 15 minute concept, you know, it's a challenge.

You know, in a lot of the neighborhoods that I've worked with, that happen to be underserved.

It's hard to talk about the 15 minute concept when a lot of these elements and walkability that we talk about infrastructure, you know, a lot of communities already lacking them, right?

- Andre just wanted.

If I could just interrupt you for just a quick second and ask you to unmute yourself on your computer.

So that yeah.

So that our viewers online can hear you as well.

Go ahead.

- Oh, okay.

Very good.

Sorry about that.

- [Dan] That's okay.

But I think, you know, as I was starting to say, you know, with a lot of work that I've been doing, not only here at Gensler throughout my career, working in underserved communities, it's really a challenge when you're engaging the residents of neighborhoods where they've actually had such disinvestment for decades if not generations, and you're talking about the 20 minute concept or a 15 minute neighborhood.

A lot of residents don't have these assets, you know.

Whether it's lack of grocery stores or places to shop, but I think Khrys and Jason spoke to this as well, there's also infrastructure, as well as the, it's been kind of a lack of investment.

It's hard to talk about transit oriented development If you don't have transit in your neighborhood or community, whether it's bus or rail or let alone the sidewalks and the infrastructure they're basic, they actually give you the experience of what walkability should be.

You know, so when we think about the work that, when I think about the work that I've done in some of the cities that you mentioned, you know, it takes a long time to get the investment going.

To really build on the fruits of that investment, whether it's in the public sector, from infrastructure or private.

And if we look, if I look back at some of the work that we've done at least here in Chicago, in the South side, where it's taking advantage of some of the assets that actually have been deteriorated in terms of transit, in terms of open space.

You know, and trying to first focus on the public realm aspects, then that could be a way to actually spur investment.

Or if it's actually working with a private developer who actually sees potential in a neighborhood and he wants to develop or redevelop or create a revitalization plan that actually is for the residents of that community.

You know, that's another way that we've actually been working in a lot of underserved communities.

But when we talk about the 15 minute concept, it really comes down to investment as a whole and getting beyond kind of the perceptions that underserved communities, you know, have in terms of where investment wants to go and who actually could be benefiting from that investor.

- Andre Brumfield, could you talk briefly about your work in Houston and what the Ward 3 was like prior to your involvement?

And I mean, not that you're the savior of this whole thing, but like prior to, you know, prior to the engagement and then how it transformed and what it feels like today.

- Yeah, you know, Ward 3 is a good example.

I prefer to steer the question just a little bit to some of the work that we've similarly done in places like Detroit and also in, on the South side of Chicago.

And it speaks to, you know, kind of working not only with community leaders, but the residents that are in the community.

And really kind of understanding what the assets that we should be actually building on.

Whether it's affordable housing as it relates to transit, whether it's assets such as public libraries and larger institutions that we've been doing here on the South side of Chicago.

For instance, we've been working in Woodlawn and also with faith-based organizations in Woodlawn, and also University of Chicago to really bring about change into one of the underserved communities in the city.

And over the past 10 years or I should say has five years, we've gotten affordable housing projects built, and we've actually created a larger ten-year framework plan.

But now the development pressures are actually starting to push into Woodlawn and people fears in terms of gentrification are starting to come to fruition.

And especially with the Obama Presidential Library that is scheduled to start construction the next two years, everyone's wondering what the next step is.

So we've actually been witnessing what we think has been a good template in terms of community benefit agreements that really speak to how residents can take advantage of the change that's actually taking place in their communities where these assets are now coming in that are now going to be 15 or 20 minutes from their front door.

And more importantly, how they could actually benefit and stay and reap, you know, at least the positive development that's going to be coming their way.

So it's part of a larger mix bags, probably too much to be captured on this call but it does speak to the assets on.. - But this is essentially... - how businesses benefit.

- Andre Brumfield, the point that you raised here about community benefit agreements and trying to put policy in place to prevent gentrification or prevent the displacement of long standing communities and community members who have been there for a time.

That's the key, right?

And I don't know that we've had the kind of, those kinds of development pressures that you're talking about in Chicago, if we've experienced that in Cleveland.

Certainly not to the same extent if we have it all.

How do you do that?

What specifically is in those community benefit agreements that prevents economic growth from creating displacement and gentrification?

- Well, I think there's a number of examples across the country, you know, that go beyond what's been happening here on the South side.

You know, I think it's a lot of things you just talked about it's a mixture of policy.

You know, public policy and how we actually think about zoning and land use.

It's the idea of how we think about employment opportunities and it's one thing that I think should be talked more about when talk about 20 minutes cities, especially on the other side of the pandemic.

How do we actually bring employment opportunities into the communities?

How people can not only just walk to places where they actually want to eat or recreate, but how could they actually walk to their place of employment?

Because I think that's also a critical thing when we think about how we actually can reposition neighborhoods.

And that's also should be thought of in terms of employment opportunities in any collective or I should say a community benefit agreement.

But what it really comes down to is really having a voice of the community and making sure that that voice of community is being captured.

And also making sure more importantly, that it's transparent, you know.

That new development is coming in is not being put upon the people, but the people are actually part of at least, you know, witnessing what is really happening.

Because I think a lot of the breakdown does come from just either a lack of communication or quite frankly, bad information that does get out there.

- Khrys Shefton, in Glenville and in the neighborhoods that you work in at Famicos, I mean, I want to know how you see these issues and these challenges about displacement and the potential for gentrification.

There are few neighborhoods that have, that are so proximate to assets in the way that Glenville is.

And it seems that if there were a place where that kind of displacement might happen in Cleveland, it could very likely be Glenville.

- I mean, we are already starting to see some of these things start around the, the Southern edge of our neighborhoods closest to the university circles.

And so it's a mixed bag and Andre spoke to it, right?

It's the opportunity for residents who live in our neighborhood in our community for 40 years to be able to sell their house for $250,000 and be able to pass on generational left to their family.

But balancing that out for the 35 year old millennials, who's looking to buy a house in our neighborhood.

Like right now, the development pressure in Cleveland is really about the middle, right?

There's affordable housing.

There's really nice luxury housing, but what about folks who are living at 80 percent of area are middle income, 120 percent disparities in income.

What about millennials who are, you know, more bogged down in student loan debt, and it's hard for them to buy a home?

So what can we do to the point about, you know, legislation.

What are the things that we can do to make it easier for those middle income folks, to be able to get access to our neighborhoods?

So let's be clear the history of Glenville as the neighborhood was that of the working class, but it was also of the black elite, right?

So the teachers, the doctors, the business, those are the folks that live in Cleveland.

And so how can we get those folks to move back?

One of the things that in my role, I worked really hard on is selling houses to people who look like the people who already live in the neighborhood.

There is the just perception that individuals, particularly those who happened to be black don't want to live in a city.

So how do we get folks with income to move back into the neighborhood?

And it not be displacement, its not de-gentrification, but it'd be a wealth transfer that is, you know, good for years to come.

- Its a really hard problem, because you have what you need is housing at all levels.

Right, Jason?

- [Jason] At all levels.

- Yeah.

Jason Segedy, I wonder if you could speak to how Akron has tackled that particular problem, because you do need the affordable housing.

You need rental units, you need houses available at a hundred thousand dollars, $200,000, $300,000 and then beyond in order to create a thriving community, perhaps.

I don't know.

How do you see it, how do you work on that and how do you fix it?

Because it's one thing to ask the questions and to say this is what we need to do, but it's another thing to graph the policy and implement it.

- Absolutely.

I mean, I think that that's been one of Mayor Horigan's biggest guiding principles is to create a city where people of all incomes can live in.

You know, as everybody on this call knows, a lot of our cities in this part of the country have had, you know, fairly small, upper income percentage of upper income households, a dwindling middle class, and a large share of lower income households, you know, in comparison to the entire metropolitan area.

And, you know, one thing we're really trying to do here in Akron is to make it a place where people of all incomes can call Akron a home.

And, you know, when you look at a lot of the national discourse around cities, and this is partly unavoidable I don't think it's a conspiracy, It's just a lot of the most influential voices are staying in New York or DC or San Francisco and so forth.

But there's a lot of talk about unaffordability of housing across the board.

And that's certainly an issue in those cities but I think when you're looking at say an Akron or Cleveland housing and rents are fairly affordable for people who are middle class and above, or very affordable if you're talking about in the city.

But it is true that, you know, if you make less than $20,000 a year, housing affordability is a problem, period.

So whether you're in Cleveland or Akron or in San Francisco.

And so I think it does point to the need for assistance for people in some way to afford rents or housing that are at that very low end of the spectrum.

I mean, there's been some discussion about a federal housing allowance or other things that would help be an entitlement, that would prop up people who are at the very low end of the spectrum.

But I think we're like Cleveland and Akron are definitely well positioned is, you know, a lot of our neighborhoods were built for working or middle-class people and the housing values have dropped precipitously.

I think the good news for both cities as we've seen a little bit of a rebound in some of those, what we would call middle neighborhoods.

You know, maybe where houses sell for say 80 to $120,000 and their property value appreciation I think is good because it starts to help banks make loans for people looking to do like a home equity loan to improve their home or to get new construction.

But I think it's fair to say coming full circle to your question Dan is, you know, people in each income category are absolutely in a different place and I think one of the city's roles is to try to really have a diversity of incomes because that does make, you know, I think it's the right thing to do first and foremost, but people in our society are at all different incomes.

And if we want to be welcoming to everybody we've got to have a place for all of those people to live.

- One of the mysteries about all of this to me is about how the market works and how to work against the market.

Right?

So Khrys, you described before somebody did selling there being able to sell their home for $250,000 and maybe move out.

Well, you can't have the same family or the same kind of, they no longer live there, right?

They've sold to somebody who can afford a $250,000 house.

And that's really obviously the process of gentrification.

Andre Brumfield, what exactly do you do to push against those sort of basic capitalist market forces?

- I wish I had the answer to that because I would be a millionaire.

- [Dan] And then you could afford a house in High Park.

- And I can afford a house in the high park, yeah.

You know, I think, you know, one of the issues that, you know, we, you know, I think are related to gentrification is that you don't see it until it's happening, right?

And by the time you actually witnessed it happening, it's already way too late, you know.

So I think, you know, I think collectively, you know, we our city leaders, our developers, our residents, you know, all of us probably, you know, need to do a better job in really understanding what some of the consequences are early on, you know.

So when we start to see some of these early signs of these tipping points, you know, where neighborhoods are starting to shift, or we're starting to see, you know, not so much new population coming in which is one thing but, you know, current population that's leaving.

You know, if we looked at Chicago, for instance, we've lost over 200,000 black residents.

200,000 black residents here in Chicago over the past 20 years.

That's a small city, essentially.

You know, and we don't need to talk about where they're going, but we can't talk about why the reasons that they're leaving.

And affordability is one of the reasons that they're leaving.

Affordability as it relates to not just housing costs that have been rising, but affordability as it relates to how they actually get to their jobs or even job opportunities as so talking about employment opportunities.

So I think there's indicators that we all need to be paying attention to.

That when we start to see neighborhoods start to shift.

When we start to see, you know, change start to happen in different demographics, or state measures of how we think about these indicators.

You know, we have to all do a better job of understanding what those early signs are because signs are.

Because once we actually start to see it, it's already way too late.

- But the stuff that you're seeing is also the stuff you want to see, right?

It's the new restaurant that comes into the neighborhood.

It's the improved park and more young families using it, right?

Like aren't those the indicators we're talking about?

- Those are some of the indicators we're talking about.

Absolutely.

And again it's about how do the current residents actually benefit from this change.

And, you know, one of the things that I've always been interested in and you've seen it in some community benefit agreements across the country not just here in Chicago, where they're looking at it a little bit more is.

You know, how do you actually think about stronger grandfather clauses for those residents who actually have lived in their house.

You know, regardless of, you know, if they've owned it or rented, we all know that in a lot of underserved communities we have families who have been living even multiple generations, you know, in a rental house, you know, and there's nothing wrong with that.

But how can we actually talk about, you know, tax freezes if you will, for those who actually are homeowners who have been in their community for the past 20 years or 25 years, or at least one generation.

How can we actually think of, you know, ways that residents could actually improve their property through select programs, you know, for the property that you own?

You know, so if they do choose to sell, because let's be honest and this is a free market.

You know, maybe, you know, that one family will want to sell their house that was only valued at $40,000 just 15 or 20 years ago now it's valued at $200,000, you know.

You know, what are ways that we can actually encourage families or have programs out there where those residents can actually improve their property, you know, but it's still, you know, keep them at a tax, you know, where they can actually still afford to live there.

I think those are some of the things that we need to be exploring more.

And this, you know, of course this is across the country.

This is not just in Chicago or in Cleveland or in places such as Detroit or Milwaukee.

You know, it's a national issue and I think, you know, these indicators and how we could actually start to think about different ways, creative ways that we can keep people in place so they benefit from that change.

You know, we have to really get serious about it so we can have a balanced city.

- Andre Brumfield is a cities and urban design leader at Gensler.

And he's with us to, as part of our Friday Forum today, we're meant to say that we're doing this Friday Forum in partnership with the Cleveland Chapter of the American Planning Association, the APA, and there we plan CLE week.

They do a lot of great programming around planning and urban design and we're delighted to partner with them.

We're going to turn to audience questions in a moment.

If you do want to join in with your question, text it to 330 541 5794, or tweet it @TheCityClub, and we'll work it into the program.

The number again to text your question is 330 541 5794.

Khrys Shefton of Famicos Foundation.

I was thinking as Andre Brumfield was talking about tax abatements, and there's almost no policy tool that Cleveland loves better than a tax abatement to encourage real estate development.

But I've never seen it deployed in Cleveland to support existing homeowners.

Where and as he was talking, I was thinking, what if a homeowner who's been been a part of the community, a part of a neighborhood for 20 years or 25 years, could qualify for a tax abatement.

To use that money to improve the property, to do all that deferred maintenance that they've been putting off that could then help improve the property value and improve the neighborhood.

- So.

So yes, And so the city of Cleveland actually took a study last year for probably end of 2019 going into 2020, looking at tax abatement across the city and what are things that can be done to improve the tax abatement program, including extending that to existing homeowners.

But that's a state thing so we have to have, and I know neighborhood progress the city of Cleveland and others have been lobbying down the state to try to get some things changed around property.

So it is something that actively being considered.

In addition to that, it didn't seem like mine or no car and other do home repair programs.

And so we offer grants and other funds to individuals to help do the existing, to improve existing properties.

I think that this is a weird thing, right?

And particularly as you talk about this in black and brown communities.

Because like if he look, we do a lot of compare and contrast, right?

And so if you look at a neighborhood like Glenville, what is the next coated city neighborhood that looks kind of like Glenville?

And one example we often use is (indistinct) and so Gold Coast and Gold Coast, right?

So if you pick up a house from Heritage Lane on East 150 street and move it to Lakewood, it instantly becomes worth $500,000, like overnight, because it's the same size house, same architecture, very quality rehab.

And so when we start talking about gentrification, we also have to take into consideration the valuation of black neighborhoods.

And so what would Glenville have been without the Glenville chill out.

or without the (indistinct).

And, you know, White flight.

And so what would those things look like?

What would the value of those homes be if we had not devalued neighborhoods like Glenville and Huts and Buckeye, and continuous investment had happened in those communities, what would those values look like now?

So it's a weird balance when we talk about things like gentrification and displacement, because it's also the wiping out of value for those homeowners who have lived in those neighborhoods for 40 years.

What would it look like if they had been able to buy a house in 1965 for $40,000 and have a house today that's worth $400,000?

And so those are just conversations we could as a weird balance in terms of a conversation to have, we want people to be able to stay in their homes and communities, but we also want them to be valued at what they're really valued for.

We want people to be able to drive through east side of Cleveland and see the same value on the East side that they see on the West side or they see downtown.

So those things are really important.

- Jason Segedy, I know as a city planner and in the work that you did previously at AMAX and elsewhere, you are a student of a policy like this.

what do you see being deployed elsewhere?

Or what would you like to deploy in Akron that you think would make a difference?

- I think one thing that I think about a lot and this gets kind of back into some of the walkability questions and I think it's a big opportunity to build on is, you know, I've always been a pretty big walker and cyclist to begin with, but I will say as much as I walked and biked, the pandemic pushed me into overdrive, you know.

Just like I think a lot of people had that same experience where you really didn't have a lot else to do.

And, you know, people, I never saw so many people on foot in my neighborhood with the pandemic.

And I think one thing that people discovered or I hope they discovered, well maybe there are two things.

One is that many things are really not all that far to walk to.

You know, going back to our 15 minute city concept that one reason I picked the neighborhood that I live in is because it is extremely accessible to a lot of different things I would like to walk to.

It's not where I would want it to be in terms of like the pleasantness of that walk, if that's a word pleasantness.

But I think people found that they could walk to more things.

But I think, and this is I think a big positive for a lot of our cities, people also maybe experienced some more of like what I would call the pain points on those walks.

Like maybe it's the button on the traffic light that just never gives you the white hand to walk.

Or the crosswalk that the paint is so faded you really can't even see it anymore.

Or like Khrys said earlier, the literally crumbling sidewalk.

And so because what I find as a city official, and I try to be this voice in our city, and there are others too which is great is, you know, it's just reality.

A lot of our society never ever walks almost anywhere unless it's maybe in a park and rarely bikes.

And so that kind of on the ground, like I'm the person who's, you know, six feet tall or six foot three in my case.

And like competing with these two ton pieces of metal, you notice a lot when you're on foot than you might not notice otherwise.

And so I think it's really important and that was, I think, unintended benefit that like as more people walked, they start to notice like how difficult sometimes it is to walk places that could be walkable.

And what I'm encouraged by is, you know, I think that as more people start to get out and walk and, you know, A, they'll notice that things are not as far as they thought but B, I hope that say in Akron with our 311 number that people can either go on the website or call, we'll say, hey that sidewalk is all busted up or that traffic light walk actuator button is broken or whatever it is because, you know, when people are driving, there's no shortage of issues they might have and complaints they might have about traffic.

But, you know, because there's a smaller percentage of people walking, I'm just, I'm encouraged I see more people even post pandemic walking, and I think we'll get, I hope and think we'll get that kind of feedback.

- It takes a long time though to change the design of a city or a neighborhood to make it more, to increase its pleasantness.

As you said, it's pleasantness.

If you have a question you want to join our conversation, please text your question to 330 541 5794.

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Khrys Shefton question from our audience, the Collingwood area seems to have been forgotten, why?

it's a very specific and general question at the same time.

And I'm not sure it's true.

- Well, it's not true.

I think the thing that is kind of tricky about Cleveland, and unless as the, as honest as we can hear that we we are the kings and queens of the project, we love a project.

We love to rally behind specific real estate development, and that requires relying on real estate developers to see value in our neighborhoods and communities, right?

And so I think that ultimately what it comes down to is that you can see the places where developers have interest and specifically water, and specifically close to some sort of transit line, right?

And so you can see that on water, you can see that in Northern shore.

So the parts of Collingwood that are closest to the lake, but when you get down, right?

When you get down of the train tracks you will again see that devaluation.

You will see that lack of investment.

And so again the same thing.

when you look in my neighborhood, right?

So the areas that are closest to university circles are close to the areas that are closest to Rockefeller Park.

Those are the areas that have seen the greatest investment over the last five years.

And so part of that is just general capitalist real estate development and how people take advantage but being able to provide tools for residents to be able to make those sorts of investments themselves.

So we already talked about things like home repair, but then also just, you know, things like the neighborhood connections grants as far as a small garden on your street, or to put some benches out for folks can sit in a vacant lot.

It requires folks to be able to see the value in their own community and not necessarily just whether it's the city or the CDC or the council person, but just having your own love for your neighborhood.

One of the things that I'm really, really big proponent of is teaching kids to love the City of Cleveland, because people really need to see the value in the place.

If I'm a five-year-old kid and all I ever hear about my neighborhood is how terrible it is, when I turned 25, the first thing I'm going to do move.

And so how do I teach you how to love?

It may not be as pleasant as we would like.

It may not be as beautiful as we would like, but how do I teach me to love the place where you live so that you can yourself make your own investments and create the city that you want to see.

I just really, that's huge for me.

You don't have to wait on anyone to do a project.

And while, and I can detect this, while navigating structure in institution, the state government can be difficult, it can also be (indistinct) - Khrys Shefton is with the Famicos Foundation, Andre Brumfield, a question for you from our audience.

It starts with a comment.

I agree with the fact that it's hard to see displacement until it happens.

Cleveland neighborhoods need more investments in businesses.

The key is involving current stakeholders at the very beginning of the neighborhood plan or development.

This would be equitable community development that could prevent displacement.

What are some examples from other cities where you see this working?

- You know, I think some of the things that have been taking place in my hometown of Milwaukee, in Brewer's Hill which is just North.

of downtown Milwaukee is a good example where I would say some of the local stakeholders have came on a little bit late.

They were probably engaged a little bit late, but they're engaged now and I think, you know, with what the Milwaukee Bucks has been doing and being kind of more out forward facing in some of the communities, particularly ones that have not only passed the tipping point of gentrifying, but identifying and working in other communities that are underserved, you know, to actually start to create balance you know, is one example.

I mentioned what we, the work that we've been involved with and many others have on the South side here in Chicago, in the Woodlawn neighborhood, and also just to the North of the university of Chicago, Bronzeville.

You know, I think it's very key whoever gave that, the question is, you know, involving the stakeholders from the community early on in the beginning to have a very transparent process and to also, if you will, kind of create their own voice and their own mission statement around their community.

I mean, it's a lot of what Khrys was talking about.

You know, there's one thing to talk about pride and where you come from, but I think also as a real estate investment, how do you actually start to get a change perception as it relates to investment.

Because I think that's one of the biggest barriers to investment in our neighborhoods is perception.

And once I think investors really start looking a little bit closely at the numbers beyond what they see in terms of income, you know.

If they start seeing where people actually shop, or where people actually go to recreate, a lot of that income is actually leaving the neighborhoods, you know, and it's traveling 20 minutes outside of our neighborhoods.

Or it's just traveling, you know, if you will, to another part of the city to get basic goods, you know.

If we really, if I think when people realize how much income or money is actually being spent outside of our neighborhoods that we consider undisturbed, people will start to realize there's development opportunities that can actually take place right In those same neighborhoods.

So I think, you know, what a number of communities that we've been working with and working in and leaders, local leaders and local elected officials, is trying to change the perception of our neighborhoods and talk about ways that we can actually, you know, attract a different lens from a developer to actually look at our neighborhoods in a much different way to encourage the right kind of investment.

So people don't have to travel too far outside of their neighborhood, they can get what they want here.

- Another the question for all of you.

Why is there search of lack of affordable new for sale housing product in Cleveland and how can we encourage or support that type of development?

And I don't actually know whether or not that applies at, that critique applies to Akron, Jason Segedy, but we'll get to that.

But Khrys Shefton, can we start with you about the affordable new for sale for sale?

Oh, we're having trouble getting, getting Khrys Shefton here.

We'll go to Akron first then, Jason Segedy.

- So I'm not sure if that critique is entirely true.

I mean, we've had, you know, we created and really modeled after a lot of what Cleveland did a 15 year citywide 100 percent property tax abatement.

It does assist people with rehabilitation, but I think it is fair to say that, you know, the big tax savings tends to be new construction.

I mean, I think there's a couple issues to unpack just really quickly.

One is there is going to be a base cost of what it costs to construct a new home.

I mean, with materials, especially now with wood being scarce, I mean, this is the first time in my lifetime we've had shortages of things in the United States so it's kind of a weird time but, you know, it's really difficult even in our low cost market in Northeast Ohio to build a new home for less than $200,000.

So what I find sometimes is people will, they will compare the brand new house to the a hundred year old house and say, why is that house more expensive?

And, you know, there is a real maintenance ongoing.

You know, my house is 75 years old.

I still think of it as almost like a new house for Akron, but it costs a lot to maintain home.

So I think when you factor in what it costs to maintain an older home, a $200,000 brand new house is not crazy or out of control.

Now it is true that there are many people in our cities that cannot afford that house.

But I think, you know, you start to getting into even more complicated issues of home ownership versus running and, you know, what mix of single family and multifamily housing.

We could do a whole episode just on that, but I don't think it's necessarily true that we have a lack of affordable new housing.

I think what we really need is a healthier housing market in general, which we're starting to move toward, which I'm very happy about where as new homes are built, some of the people who may have moved older homes in the city move into those homes and they stay in the city.

And then there's an opportunity for people who might be at a slightly lower income to buy those older homes and you get kind of this positive filtering effect.

Because I think what we have seen here in Akron, and I'll let Khrys bear this out for Cleveland and Andre for his situation in Chicago, but often when people move up in terms of housing, they just move out of the city completely.

And so I think having, it gets back to your question earlier Dan, of having like a variety of price points and people of different incomes where, you know, typically in our city the issue has been people at the high end of the income spectrum just move out of the city completely.

And we do want to retain them, but at the same time we absolutely want to be equitable and have a better city for people at lower income ranges as well.

- Khrys Shefton.

- So we talk about this concept of going from first to best in the neighborhood.

So that means that I should be able to rent an apartment as a college student I she be able to buy my starter home.

And then I should be able to move up to whatever my next version looks like, right?

All within, hopefully it meets the same city, but it would be great if we could do these within a lot of our existing neighborhoods.

So that the kind of issue from a new housing perspective, particularly in places like Cleveland, is that it is expensive to build and constructing a house.

The cost of materials yes, but also the costs of construction.

It's really important to have these conversations as it applies to the cost of labor, in a place like Cleveland because we need construction workers.

A lot of the folks that are, that do construction are getting up there.

They're starting to age out and those skills aren't being easily replaced so that it's driving up the cost of labor to work on these on this project, because you're using the same companies, you're using the same guys.

And so the concept of youth coming into the market, younger people being trained in trades and being able to access those middle income jobs.

It helps on all fronts.

And so those sorts of things really would hopefully help to drive down the cost to build a new home.

But it's also about where you're building.

So in a place like Cleveland, a legacy city, where we've had a lot of demolitions the costs that take you to remediate an existing site, because there might lead there or there might be some other issues, also drive the, you know, the cost to build new homes.

And so these are things that need to be taken into consideration.

And one of the things that I'm so proud of that we do at Famicos is rehabilitation, which is also expensive.

So don't think it easy.

That's also expensive, But being able to make existing investments in existing homes and encourage individuals to move into those.

And ensuring the upkeep of those homes for the longterm will hopefully drive down the cost of acquiring homes in the city, just generally.

This is also when I made my club credit policy side of the City of Cleveland because their cost from a middle neighborhood perspective tends to be lower and they also have smaller housing sizes and so they tend to be in the a hundred and $120,000 range.

Which is very affordable formally but the things that they're missing or the things that they could use our amenities, right?

And so it's the Andre's point.

It's you can't look at these things in silos, they have to be looked at together.

It's not just new homes.

It's not just economic development.

It's all of these things working together in a systemic way that allow for the improvements of our community.

- Another question.

Oh, Andre Brumfield, go ahead.

- If I could add one more thing.

Cause I think Khrys touched on something and so did Jason that I think is pretty important when we think about residential development and we think about affordability.

You know, I think the key for all of our cities across the country is when we talk about affordable housing.

It's really about having a broad range of housing types.

You know, that we can actually have, that are accessible to all of our people that are living in our cities.

The idea of as you actually transition from certain periods of life, whether you're actually graduating from college or you're graduated from high school, you're going to getting your first job, you know, to actually getting married, to actually starting a family, to actually aging in your, in place in your neighborhood.

My mother's 74 years old and she does not want to be in a retirement home.

She wants to be in a community.

She wants to be in her city.

So if we started talking about how we can actually have an offering of broader range of housing types that actually fit everyone's life cycle, if you will.

And what that means from an affordable standpoint.

You know, and having that balance.

We'll start to see less of a squeeze of creating some of these cities that are actually starting to be extreme where it's literally the rich and the poor and there's nothing in between, you know.

So I think if we actually focused on that broader missing middle that I think in terms of what we offer in terms of our residential housing stock and what that means in terms of certain price points as it relates to affordability.

Not subsidized housing, but affordable housing, if you will, You know, our cities are going to be more balanced and quite frankly, more equitable, you know, when we actually talk about probably what maybe a slightly overused phrase, but that has to be worked into this as well.

So I just wanted to, you know, at least kind of build on some of the points that Jason and Khrys were... - Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And part of the, you know, the, to draw the whole circle here, this idea of the 15 minutes city or the 15 minute neighborhood is that housing that you can afford.

That you want to be in.

That is close to the things that you want to do or use.

This next question speaks to that.

Our listener writes, I live in the inner ring suburb of University Heights and believe we are an aspiring 15 minutes city.

However, our retail centers aren't, as Jason put it, a pleasant walk.

They are very much car centric.

How do you get buy-in from residents and retail property owners to rally behind pedestrian and bike infrastructure?

Jason Segedy, I feel like you've been doing some very explicit work in rallying people around bike infrastructure, at least.

- Yeah.

And I'll touch on that.

And then maybe just to touch briefly on what the questioner had said about the pleasantness.

I mean, I think one tool cities have in, and this takes I've tried to make this point before.

It's really a political question more than a technical planner question but we are forming zoning.

So as a lot of those older, let's say like strip plazas, I can very well picture like Cedar Road and some of the other major arterials and University Heights.

And I think it is, I think an aspiring community is a great way to put it cause it's got dense housing, it's got great walkable retail in terms of the proximity to the residential boat.

What it's missing is, you know, your actual connection to walking through the front door of that business or crossing those streets.

And so I think a tool cities have is to reform zoning and do what a lot of people call form-based codes.

Where that's more governing how the look and feel of the buildings like making sure buildings are build up to the sidewalk, the parking is in the back.

It takes a lot of political will to do that.

But I think if cities can pull that off and, you know, we're trying to do that in Akron.

Sometimes imperfectly, sometimes well.

It makes a big difference for the perception of the pedestrian.

And then just to touch on the biking really quickly.

Yeah, I think that's another thing that's a work in progress.

I mean, both for pedestrians and bikes.

We're continually trying to make more protected bike lanes in the city.

What we're doing right now is, you know, we've got ones that I would call like somewhat jokingly crimes of opportunity where we were able to re-stripe that street but it doesn't really form a network and so we're kind of trying to fill some of those gaps.

We've had great success, which I know Cleveland has had equally or maybe greater success with the scooters.

So a lot of people like the scooters, you know, Akron's a pretty hilly city sometimes having that scooter help you up the hill versus trying to, you know, work it out on a bike.

Is good and so I think the scooters have been good because they're introducing people more to the idea that I can hop on a scooter or a bike and, you know, I can cover that 15 or 20 minute walk in just five minutes on a scooter or a bike.

And so I think bikes and scooters are an important part of the equation but I think it's fair to say, you know, we're thinking about it more and working toward it but we're a long way from Copenhagen.

So that gives us something to shoot for.

- From Copenhagen.

A couple of questions I want to combine here in our last minute or two.

One has to do with rent control, Andre Brumfield, and the impact that that might have.

And the other has to do with taxes being locked in as they do in California under prop 13.

Both of these have weird economic impacts in the end.

They may benefit people in the short term, but have these adverse economic impacts in the long run.

But Andre Brumfield, I wonder how you see those.

- Well, you know, again, you know, I think it's interesting when you actually think about, you know, some of these examples particularly that you just mentioned in California.

And of course, New York city has actually been employing some of this for quite some time, you know, as it relates to rent control and on the tax side.

You know, I think, you know, it really comes down to balance and unfortunately some of this is going to be, have to be a little bit of trial and error, you know.

And, you know, I think, you know, the consequences of at least not, you know, trying to be creative and explore some of different ways that we can actually, you know, making sure that our residents stay in place, but they don't get texts out of their communities.

You know, unfortunately there's very few examples out there that really are successful.

So, you know, I think it's really up to all of us to really kind of, you know, not only start challenging, you know, how we actually think about our communities and how they evolve.

And also quite frankly our elected officials to really, you know, start to step in and do something about this.

And also working, I think with, you know, quite frankly other developers, you know, who are actually, you know, coming in and working and putting in some new housing stock.

You know, and understanding, you know, how we can actually, you know, meet, you know, the price points that you're actually trying to achieve and get the return that they want on the investment, but still at the same time, making sure that we allow for people to reside here.

So I think, you know, in terms of specifically as relates to taxes, that's quite frankly just outside of my... - Yeah.

It is a whole other forum topic and we have to leave it there.

Andre Brumfield is with Gensler in Chicago, Jason Segedy with the City of Akron and Khrys Shefton with Famicos Foundation.

Thank you so much for helping to, helping us understand these issues better here for our Friday Forum.

- [Khrys] Thank you for having us.

- It's been great.

And thanks to all of you for joining us as well.

I want to tell you that we are doing now in-person forums.

They've started on Public Square on Tuesdays and on the 23rd of July, we will be back to the Friday Forum in person at The City Club.

Find out more @cityclub.org.

And I just want to thank you for being a part of this today.

And I look forward to seeing you all very, very soon.

This is The City Club.

I'm Dan Moulthrop.

Have a great day.

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