Building Better Cities
Welcome to Building Better Cities, the podcast where we explore the evolving landscape of urban development and the crucial role that infrastructure and real estate investments play in shaping our communities.
Building Better Cities
Latest Episodes
How San Diego rewired California housing incentives with Colin Parent
For generations, California has approached housing growth through a familiar playbook: long planning processes, neighborhood-by-neighborhood debates, and major reforms that often struggle to deliver homes at scale.But every so often, an ...
What makes a better city? Inside LEED’s urban framework with Dr. Vatsal Bhatt
How do you measure whether a city is actually getting better?Most people know LEED as the gold standard for green buildings. But cities are more than buildings—they’re systems made up of housing, ...
Funding city infrastructure at the ballot box: what Nashville got right with Amanda Wall Vandegrift
Transit ballot measures are often seen as a long shot — especially when affordability is top of mind and voters are being asked to raise their own taxes. But in November 2024, 66% of Nashville voters said yes to
Part 2: Why transit investment is really a city building decision with Yonah Freemark and Sam Sklar
You pay rent or a mortgage every month and you know exactly what that costs. But how much are you spending just to get where you need to go? For a lot of Americans, transportation is the hidden cost of where they live — and it's a cost that's b...
Part 1: Why zoning reform isn't solving the housing crisis with Yonah Freemark
Upzoning is often pitched as the silver bullet for the housing crisis — change the rules, let developers build, and supply will bring prices down. But the reality is a lot more complicated. In this episode, host Kate Gasparro sit down with