All Topics
Disrupting Aesthetics
Recently, Kyle Chayka wrote an interesting article in Verge about “How Silicon Valley helps spread the same sterile aesthetic across the world”. Most of the discussion is about what he calls airspace, the “same faux-artisanal aesthetic” (to be clear, which I like) that companies like Starbucks and social networks like Instagram (companies I patronize) seem to have independently chosen to…
Workforce Housing and Innovation Tenants
BisNow’s “The Future of Cambridge: Innovation, Community Engineering and the Spread of the Kendall Square Phenomenon,” moderated by our old friend Rich McKinnon, was an interesting, insightful discussion between public (Tom Evans, the Executive Director of the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority, and Iram Farooq, Assistant City Manager of the City of Cambridge), and private (Alex Twining, CEO Twining Properties, and Lawrence…
What Is Density Anyway?
There are a lot of people talking about density these days. Is it good and important for sustainability? Or is it bad and hurts property values? When we talk about density, we rarely define it, but it clearly means very different things to different people. During a recent ULI Technical Assistance Panel I was part of in Provincetown, this really came…
The Housing Ecosystem
People often talk about moving up the housing ladder. The progression is pretty standard for many; from living with your parents, you move to a college dorm and then your first apartment, maybe pausing at a starter condo before buying a house. But not only is the housing ladder getting harder for many people to climb, it’s also missing some…
For Better or Worse, Provincetown is Ahead of the Curve
Provincetown is one of my favorite places – anywhere. I’ve been going there for almost 30 years; I have watched it change, as places do, and I love it now as much as I did then. But like all communities, it has its concerns and issues. So I was honored to be part of an Urban Land Institute Technical Assistance…
What is the Future of Downtown?
One of the best things about great cities is that they adapt and change. Rail yards become new neighborhoods, and industrial districts become lofts, offices, and shopping centers. The ability of the urban fabric to evolve with the rapidly changing ways we live and work is part of the reason people and businesses are returning to the city core. It…
Retail & the City (and the suburbs, too)
Once upon a time, people lived in the same places where they worked and shopped. Like my grandparents, who lived over the butcher shop in Irvington, New Jersey. Their community was tied together by local retailers. Then, someone decided that it would better and cleaner and less bothersome to separate where we lived from where we worked, and from where…
Location, Location, Location
That’s the old punchline about real estate, but it’s especially true for retail. No matter how much we buy online, and no matter how many of us move back to the city, location and access remain paramount. Successful retailers, both urban and suburban, have always understood (and had) location. We are facing a future in which how things are delivered…
Where Is Retail Going Anyway?
Some say it’s going away. Some say it’s online. Others say it’s changing so fast that it’s impossible to know. While the role retail plays is changing, it remains a critical component of both the real estate industry and our public places. Even if it’s more convenient to buy certain things online, the social act of going downtown (or to…