May 26, 2021 • 63 mins
Do our neighborhoods reflect our natural community patterns? Have we designed them to create economic success? We gravitate towards highly interconnected walkable ecosystems, but somewhere along the way we've turned away from that natural inclination, compartmentalizing our cities so that offices and commercial uses are separate, making the retail businesses surrounding them dependent on the 9-5 workers that frequent the area and leaving the neighborhood emptied outside of traditional office hours. Perhaps it's time to evaluate the ecosystems we create for ourselves to insure they match out natural order: to create neighborhoods that are fully livable and fully functional, with high levels of diversity that create natural economic success.
This week's episode features Jared Rodriguez, Principal, Emergent Urban Concepts, a thought leader in the realm of community development. With a degree in civil engineering, architectural Studies, and has worked in Real Estate Development with a focus on green energy components and sustainability, Jared helps communities determine who they want they be.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
We are experiencing a paradigm shift, a fundamental
change in the way we usually dothings.
We are intentionally choosing tosee the silver lining
opportunity arises.
We can shine a light on thethings that weren't working well
(00:25):
on those things that weren'treally working at all, we can
regroup reevaluate andre-engineer it's time to explore
new patterns and paradigms thosethat inspire us to rise above
the chaos and explore how theconditions of today and take us
(00:47):
to a better tomorrow patternsand paradigms the pattern
podcast from Hudson valleypattern for progress.
Your listening to season twoepisode 21 urban concepts with
your host pattern, president andCEO, Jonathan Dropkin.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Hi everyone, and welcome to patterns and
paradigms.
We hope you enjoyed our lastepisode with Simone development.
Today's episode will be our lastuntil we resume after labor day,
while we wish you all time to beoutside.
We have a great deal of work totend to over the next three
(01:27):
months.
Um, we will return with a greatfall lineup.
If you have any topics in mind,drop us an email, of course,
feel free to use the break tocatch up with past episodes by
downloading them through applepodcast or wherever you find
your favorite one, or, um, well,actually not, or, but, and
(01:54):
please take a moment to shareone of your favorites with
someone else so that they can beintroduced to patterns and
paradigms this week's bubble ortrend supplies.
Supplies supply kind of remindsme of the old Gomer Pyle.
If you're old enough to remembersurprised, surprise, surprise.
(02:16):
But when we return in the fall,we will see where the pandemic
induced supply shortages are,whether it is food as all the
restaurants open at once and areall demanding, they need
supplies or labor as demand forproduction heats up.
(02:39):
There seems to be far moresupply side shortages than
originally anticipated.
If you were looking to build thenew house, good luck as there is
a shortage of lumber.
This one is already atexacerbating, a shortage of new
homes driving through the roof.
(03:01):
Pardon the pun.
If it continues, expect the fedreserve to step in and revisit
interest rates, so bubble ortrend.
Well, we got to look at this oneas a trend, at least until
September and that's as far aswe have to weigh in on this, the
economy and society for thatmatter is going through what we
(03:24):
would call the great resettling.
There are a number of thingsthat need to find the
equilibrium post pandemic.
So while this might appear to bea bubble, we think of it more
like a trend as we settle allparts of our society to a new
(03:44):
leveling.
And w w we're struggling to findthe right words here.
But remember, this is somethingthat hadn't happened in a
hundred years.
It is going to take a while tosee just where we are.
So I'm here with my partner andpattern, Joe Cheika the New York
times of the weekend.
(04:05):
Joe had an article on worlddemographic trends as weird
pattern consider ourselvespretty good demographers, or at
least pretty good analyst ofdemographic information.
There was a lot to digest inthat article.
Unfortunately, we never seem tobe able to get people as excited
(04:28):
as we are about demographics,but underneath most societal
trends, there is an element ofdemography.
What was your favorite takeawayfrom the article Joe?
Well, it was a little depressingto be honest with you, but
(04:49):
there's a lot of takeaways.
And I think it's reallyimportant that we understand
what, what was behind thisarticle in that we're losing
people, we're losing population.
There's something out therecalled a replacement rate, which
needs to be at 2.1.
(05:09):
And that's simply, um, theamount of people needed, um,
that replaces our society.
Uh, that kind of works like forevery two adults.
There needs to be two kids.
That's correct.
And there's something called thefertility rate.
And so when the replacementrate, I'm sorry, when the
(05:30):
fertility right, gets a littlecomplicated drops below 2.1, we
lose population.
And ever since 1971, ourfertility rate has been below
2.1 today.
It's actually about 1.7 and itis an issue.
It's not only an issue here, butit's an issue around the entire
(05:53):
glow, 183 countries andterritories out of 195 will have
fertility rates below thereplacement rate by 2100 that's
yeah, that's not too far away.
Right.
And it's actually forecastedthat we're going to start
shrinking by 2062, according tothe university of Washington.
(06:18):
And even if we rapidly increasethis rate, it would take decades
to take effect.
The lack of immigration is anissue, but it's not a long-term
solution because the othercountries are facing the same
issues we are.
So it would be sort of a, youknow, about a swap out if you
will.
People leave in countries thatare losing population into other
(06:41):
countries that are losingpopulation, it's a lose, lose
scenario, Joe, Joe, it is one ofthe solutions for, you know, I
don't want to be, um, one of thegreat parts about America is
that immigration has led toprobably what makes one of the
(07:07):
many reasons of what makes thiscountry as great as it is when
we have allowed for immigration,the blending of different
cultures, thinking ideas.
It was what this country, atleast in my belief was founded
on.
Absolutely.
And one of the componentscertainly, um, that immigration
(07:30):
allows is fixing laborshortages.
And yet, you know, if you wantto shut the door and you have
labor shortages, you're shuttingoff combined with what you're
talking about, you know, the lowfertility rate and being below
the replacement rate, Joe, oneof our favorite discussions has
(07:51):
come up many times last week wasthat all my God, we're going to
be building in our, um,community more housing and the
impact on schools.
You have an opinion on that one.
Yeah, just a little bit.
So the old adage is when youbuild a house or an apartment,
(08:12):
you increase the schoolpopulation by 2.5 kids.
We haven't found the 0.5 kid,but can you imagine 2.5 kids
that was based on a Rutgersstudy done many decades ago, and
people on zoning boards andplanning words and town boards,
they're still stuck on thatright now.
We're actually probably about0.6 or 0.7 kids per unit.
(08:36):
So it's substantially lower.
And so the argument of you builda subdivision of a hundred, a
hundred units or a hundredhomes.
We're going to add 2.5 kids perso it's 250 kids per 100 units.
Not happening, not happening atall.
People are just not having kids.
(08:59):
And, and it's a big impact.
The population pyramid, whichshould be like exactly a
pyramid.
It should be the younger peopleon the bottom and the older
people.
Well on top and the bottomsupports the top.
Well, the population pyramid hasactually been reversed.
There's less on the bottom, moreon top.
So what happens that populationpyramid, if you think of a
(09:22):
triangle it's standing on itspoint, it's going to fall over.
Why does that happen?
Well, not enough gen Z andmillennials are having kids.
And if they do have a family, aswe like to say one and done the
birth, the birth rate itself hasactually dropped by 4% during
the pandemic on, you know,popular belief, oh, people are
(09:46):
probably going to have more kidsbecause they're all home and not
doing anything else didn'thappen.
So for many people, it's aneconomic decision, which is
unfortunate, social security.
Again, if you look at thatpopulation pyramid, social
security is going to have a bigimpact who pays for all of the
elderly population, retiringwith an aging population.
(10:08):
We're going to need morehealthcare providers and
services.
Other workforce issues come intoplay more than lack of skilled
people.
We have a lack of peoplealtogether by 2026, there's
going to be an estimatedworkforce deficit of some 6
million people.
That's only five years away.
(10:28):
Baby boomers were retiring atthe rate of 2 million per year.
Last year, 3 million retired.
The United nations actually saidthat before the next century
there'll be two people dependentupon each worker.
So a third depends on I'm sorry.
Two thirds depends on one thirdlabor force participation rate
(10:53):
dropped from 5% in 1982, between1980 and 2019.
The percentage of, of the, of agiven population is employed or
actively seeking employment isavailable for that's the
definition of the labor forceparticipation rate about 7
(11:13):
million able-bodied people chosenot to work millennials.
They're inheriting wealth fromthe baby boomers.
The opioid crisis pulled almosta million prime age men from the
workforce in 2015 alone.
Then some 38% of men aged 25 to34, still living with their
parents.
(11:34):
Those three elements, right?
There are huge demographicinput, implicate implications,
automation and technology willhelp to some degree, but there's
more critical mass.
There is more of a critical massof robots building and providing
direct services.
Meaning we have a labor issue,technology can't fully replace
(11:59):
human beings.
We need targeted skills andtraining with higher retention
rate of all workers, collegesand universities will need to
enhance their services, theirprograms, and overall their
educator education model toincorporate more non-traditional
students, part-timers parentswith the child where people
(12:21):
taking care of their elderlyparents or grandparents.
So it's going to be a paradigmshift from everything from
working in a manufacturingcenter, to working in a
warehouse distribution center tocollege programs, looking for
their next student.
(12:41):
Well, if that doesn't give youenough to think about between
now and our return just afterlabor day, I don't know what
does demographics.
I know it's just numbers, but asjudges pointed out all the
realities of what those numbersmean.
So thank you.
(13:03):
You're welcome.
Our guest today is JaredRodriguez.
Jared is one of our favoriteyoung thought leaders in the
area of community development.
Jared is degreed in civilengineering and architectural
studies.
He worked eight years realestate development, but
(13:23):
distinctly focused on greenenergy components.
Jared is now full time as theprincipal of his own consulting
firm, emergent urban concepts,which helps communities
determined who they want to be.
Jared has an opinion on justabout everything, but they're
(13:43):
educated opinions.
They're based on having spentyears trying to figure out how
things work.
You'll hear many of them intoday's discussion.
Hi, Jared, how you doing?
Doing well?
How are you?
Pretty good?
You know this for our listeners,this, you know, I'll repeat it a
(14:06):
few times probably, but thiswill be our last as we take our
summer break and we couldn't bemore delighted than to have you
with us.
Um, how did you know that thisvirus was not just a virus, but
was going to be, uh, somethingmore than that?
(14:27):
So I, I mean, this is absolutelycrazy.
I read an article by, I cannotremember who it was, but he was
talking about exponential growthand how, you know, massive
growth can be hidden in plainsight without even kind of
knowing it.
So this was around the timewhere they like put a cord in
(14:48):
around, or maybe just beforethey put a cordon around new,
um, that was the first whateverthat was.
Yeah.
I mean, it wasn't the first,right?
So like my, my wife is a nursepractitioner.
She works in Manhattan andthroughout November and
December, they were seeing COVIDcases.
They just didn't know it wasCOVID.
Um, so the first, like major, Iguess, major outbreak that we
(15:12):
were aware of, right.
As a, uh, state public healthauthority was newer shell, but
it definitely looking back wasnot the first time I read this
article about exponential growthand how it's sort of like hidden
in plain sight.
And then all of a sudden itskyrockets, right.
And hospitals are shutting downbecause they're re you know,
(15:33):
reaching capacity.
And that could happen in likeless than a one week period.
Right.
Just sort of what weexperienced.
Um, I actually went to London onMarch.
I think it was March 8th.
And so went to London after thenew Rochelle guy was identified
(15:53):
and yeah, and then we're an N 95mask throughout all the airports
and on the airplane.
And people were like making funof me, you know, in the subway
too.
Right.
People were sort of like, what,you know, what are you doing?
Why are you doing that?
And I'm like, are you, you'rewatching Asia, right.
Like they're doing it.
So we should be doing it.
(16:14):
And this is an air, you know,this is an airborne disease.
Right.
And people, and then, you know,even the CDC was saying, it's
not an airborne disease.
Right.
I don't know what the ulteriormotives were, but very unclear
communication the beginning.
Um, and so by the time I wasreturning, it was like, right
before the shutdown on March13th, it was like Friday the
(16:37):
13th.
And, uh, you know, by then itwas pretty clear.
Cause I think the market wascrashing and you know, in, in
London it was starting to get alittle bit freaky.
Uh, you know, and then youstarted seeing like, everybody's
starting to wear masks and yeah.
So do you have any problemcoming home from London or was
it before they remember thatsome point the president came
(17:00):
said no more flights fromEurope?
No, no, no.
It was fine.
Um, coming back, uh, and it wasactually like really easy to get
back.
I was just sort of freaked out,join the clubs and um, I mean,
luckily I didn't, I didn't getit.
(17:22):
And very few people that I knowdid, but obviously it was like a
tremendous tragedy and it's oneexample of, um, our
infrastructure kind of failingus.
Right.
And in this case it was publichealth infrastructure.
So I I'm one of the people thatbelieve this was a full-out
failure to identify a risk andtake appropriate action.
(17:47):
Um, and it was, and we, youknow, we paid the price with,
you know, hundreds of thousandsof deaths, which is[inaudible]
600,000, you know?
Yeah.
All right.
So Jared, for the benefit of ourlisteners, um, let's describe
what emergent urban conceptsare, which is your own baby, I
think.
(18:07):
And then you also work forLeFrak development.
Sure.
So actually left is a client ofemerging now, I'm sorry.
I mean, full on, you know, in myconsulting firm, uh, I've, I've
had this from sort of off and onactually since 2007 when I was
(18:29):
in undergrad.
So, uh, with a few friends ofmine, we started a consulting
firm that focused on planningfor large scale renewables, um,
mostly in new England andWestern New York.
So at the time there were a lotof wind power developers that
were approaching municipalitiesand industrial development
authorities.
Um, and asking for deals likeapprovals on these really large
(18:53):
projects, because that was, youknow, in 2007, that was the last
time that, um, wind wascompetitive with natural gas.
Uh, obviously like the recessionturned everything upside down
and the federal government madea decision to use natural gas as
a bridge fuel.
And they pumped a lot of fundsinto development of natural gas
(19:14):
and the price collapsed.
Um, and then when became lesscompetitive.
So I actually started took, uh,almost like a 10 year I, it is
from doing consulting, um, andgot a master's in real estate
development.
Um, you know, coming off of myundergraduate degree in civil
structural engineering andarchitectural studies.
(19:38):
Um, and then, you know, went towork for, uh, the lift rack
organization in New York.
Um, and I had always been reallyinterested in real estate
development.
It was sort of the thing that Iwanted to do as my, my career.
Um, you know, I worked forMartin Ginsburg on Haverstraw
and a few other projects.
(19:59):
Um, you know, when, when againwent away to college and then
started working with the leftracks and at rougher, I, um, I
mostly managed energy and energyconservation and then
sustainability compliancebecause, you know, over the past
10 years there's been sort of arevolution in how, um, emissions
(20:20):
from buildings is regulated andhow energy consumption is
regulated.
Uh, and so, you know, I kind oflived through the whole, um, how
do you convert tens of millionsof square feet of, of, uh,
residential and commercial spaceto all LEDs?
How do you, um, you know, takeserious, like the issue of lack
(20:45):
of insulation, um, and then howdo you kind of cut across a lot
of different sectors to achieve,you know, solutions that meet
objectives, um, that are likevery broad, right?
And so that's sort of, that'ssort of what I think my
expertise is, is like I couldlook at objectives, um, coming
(21:06):
from a lot of differentstakeholders, right.
Who might have like verydifferent points of view.
And I can understand whenthey're saying the same thing so
that you can, you know, for lackof a better word, killed two
birds with one with one stone.
I mean, I, I hate that.
I hate that.
Uh, but, um, but yeah, so, so,so yeah, I mean, uh, the
(21:27):
experience with blood Frick wasamazing.
I mean, they are city builders.
They, they build at scales thatfew people are familiar with.
I mean, they've, they'veacquired, uh, rail yards from,
from, uh, different railcompanies and built, you know,
hundreds of buildings, uh, newcities springing up from nothing
like just south of the Hobokenterminal on the Jersey city,
(21:48):
waterfront, um, you know,battery park city, uh, they were
the first to build their batterypark city.
So they're a company that hasvision.
They don't have the reputationfor being visionaries, but they
really are.
Um, which is kind of, kind ofinteresting.
So I was lucky to work for them.
So I, I grew up in Queens andthere was LeFrak city, which was
(22:12):
one of, I think their earliestprojects, which is how I know of
them.
So let's, well actually I wasgoing to go in one direction.
So let me actually go in adifferent direction, which is,
um, so New York city, the lackof people returning to work all
(22:34):
these tall, urban skyscrapers inNew York city, many of which are
still far below capacity.
Have you thought much aboutsomething like, what do we do
with them?
And yeah, of course.
Yeah.
So what do we do Jared?
(22:55):
Well, what's interesting though,is leading up to the pandemic,
the amount of density inskyscrapers, like office was
increasing dramatically, uh, youknow, it increased dramatically.
It was like the WIWORKphenomenon, right?
Cram as many people as you caninto a single space, you know,
the partitions come down,everybody's working really close
(23:16):
to each other.
So there was a dynamic wherelike we were at extremely high
density, like sometimes doublewhat it traditionally was like,
certainly triple what it was inthe sixties or the seventies
when most of the building stockwas built.
I mean, think sixth avenue we'rehaving to the America's right.
Or Madison.
Um, so we were already likereally high and it was almost to
(23:40):
some extent, you know,detrimental to the neighborhood
because there you, theseneighborhoods with mostly office
workers and the entire retailecosystem, right.
Everything is oriented to nineto five.
So when people leave, it dies,it's just dead.
I mean, we've all experiencedwhat it's like in Midtown, you
know, on an evening outside ofsay the theater district.
(24:02):
Right.
Um, it's totally dead.
So, uh, and it's more dead now.
So, so I think, honestly, theanswer is we need to make fully
livable neighborhoods.
Every neighborhood needs to belike fully livable and
functional and not just caterto, or serve one youth, right.
(24:27):
Or one type of person.
It has to have high levels ofdiversity.
And that's how you createeconomic success.
Because if you think about howwe build or develop communities,
I mean, it's really not unlike anatural ecosystem, right.
I mean, it's, it's, ourecosystem is one that we build,
right.
(24:47):
Um, but it's usually highlydiverse, highly interconnected.
And the only thing that preventsthose things from happening are
our own silly rules, um, zoningand exactly.
And, and other restrictions thatdefy what our natural order is.
Our natural order is to clusterand do a high diversity of
(25:09):
things in, within generally awalkable, um, uh, scale.
So we've been doing that forthousands of years.
What, what changed?
I mean, I could, I could getinto what changed, which goes
back probably to 1900 or the1890s.
So let me ask you this thencould a skyscraper, you know,
(25:32):
one of these 80 story,residential towers or something,
or commercial, you know,commercial, uh, more of the
residential of the higher ones,but what if they were mixed use
and you create, create, youknow, like every third floor was
actually residential and thenthe bottom floors were actually
(25:53):
retail and then which they oftenare.
I just saw this new one openedthis eighties story one.
Did you notice the one with theoutdoor elevators there?
It's amazing.
Maybe, maybe, yeah.
I've, I've seen a bunch ofproposals lately and I think
(26:14):
people are keying into this, andthis is something that was
happening before, before thepandemic.
I mean, the pandemic sort oflike an accelerator, right.
Nothing that happened during thepandemic was new, not one thing
was new, it was just extreme andaccelerating.
Right.
So all the trends that we'reseeing are just accelerated
(26:36):
trends that were already there.
And one of those trends wasmixed use skyscrapers, right.
Um, and incorporating differentuses.
And typically what they, whatthey'll do is like, you know,
the, the, the highest part ofthe skyscraper is condo.
The middle is a hotel and thebottom is retail and office.
(26:57):
Right.
That makes sense.
Cause that's where the value is.
Um, but you know, I would gofurther and say that artists and
manufacturing is something thatcould happen in some of these
large floorplate buildings.
I mean, no reason why you can'tdo small batch manufacturing,
um, especially if they are corespaces that have less value.
(27:19):
Um, there's probably some levelof boutique manufacturing that
could, uh, that could occur.
I mean, a lot of the stuff Iwent to Brooklyn, um, a lot of
stuff that's coming through theHudson valley.
Uh, but you know, this is sortof the problem of like building
purpose built buildings, right?
Like the building is built for avery specific use, kind of like
(27:41):
a Walmart, right.
It's how do you let it evolve?
Because throughout themillennia, the history of
humans, right.
Uses and things, and villagesand settlements evolve, right.
They have to change.
So why are we throwing all theseresources that like a throwaway
landscape, it kind of doesn'tmake sense versus like, what did
(28:03):
they do in the 18, you know,1880s and nineties in the
industrial revolution, theybuilt buildings that could
become sort of anything.
Right.
And that's like garner artcenter, a lot of our old factory
and mill buildings throughoutthe Hudson valley.
So, you know, back then it wasbuilt to host manufacturing.
(28:24):
And, you know, in the eightiesand nineties, they started to
attract, you know, artists, um,and scenic design shops and all
these other types of uses.
And today there's a breweryboom, or there has been for the
past almost 10 years.
Um, so what is what happensnext?
And we're actually seeing, uh,like a hospitality boom in the
(28:45):
Hudson valley.
And I would argue that that willcontinue as the link between the
New York tourism industry andthe Hudson valley continues to
be solidified.
I mean, we're going to continueto ride this, this tourism,
boom.
And it's not just forinternational tourists that are
coming though.
That's, that's a big, big marketand it will, I think, continue
(29:06):
to be a big market once we getout of, uh, COVID maybe bigger
than ever before, becauseeverybody's just dying to not be
cooped up in their houseanymore.
Um, but it's also like thisweekend market.
I mean, we've seen a major trendreversals in, uh, Metro, north
ridership, right?
It's it's off peak.
(29:27):
I mean, off peak is booming andweekend summers like summer
weekends, um, and fall weekendsare just booming.
Like you can't even today,actually last weekend.
Um, not a seat available on aMetro north train, headed back
into the city from Peekskill,uh, on a Sunday evening, wait,
(29:50):
Jared.
So let's just set this up forour listeners.
So New York city is this massiveurban, um, center to our south.
And then the Hudson valley,which is primarily our listeners
is, um, for patterns.
Listeners is nine counties have,which we're going to, I think
(30:11):
your tourism transition isreally helpful, but I want to
ask one question and then we'regoing to bring you up to the
Hudson valley since you haveyour, your you've worked in both
New York city and the Hudsonvalley.
So, um, are you bullish?
Will New York city come back asa young adult?
Yeah, of course.
(30:31):
Right.
I mean, unless we have apopulation collapsed, right?
Cause no one's having children,New York times is a thing.
Yeah.
But I would say that for everyperson that says that they want
to leave New York, there's 10people lined up saying that they
want to be there.
So when prices readjust spotsget filled sort of immediately.
(30:54):
Um, and it's always been thatway.
It's always been that way.
We have a lot of neighbors inWestchester and Rockland that
moved here in the seventies andeighties and said, you could
keep the city.
I like rest jester and Rockland.
Right.
But for every person that livedthere eventually with someone to
fill their shoes or 10 people tofill their shoes and that's what
we've seen happen.
So the city always reinventsitself and is dynamic and
(31:18):
changes.
I mean, I know peoplecatastrophize over sea level
rise, but the city's going toreinvent and find its way.
There's been sea level.
There's been catastrophic sealevel rise for lower Manhattan
since the 18, since the 17hundreds.
Right.
And it somehow changed andbecame something else.
So landfilling is notimpossible.
(31:38):
We're really good at it.
Well, battery park city, the newurban park that was just open
that's this floating 2.4 acres.
It's it's fascinating to me.
All right.
So explain if I'm, if I'm right.
I think there's a differencebetween economic development and
community development and youhave been very active in
(32:03):
communities like Haverstraw andOssining is there.
So what is community developmentversus economic development?
If you agree that there is adifference?
Um, I have a hard time finding adifference because although all
I think economic development is,or the economy is, is just the
(32:26):
it's, this, the economy is thespeed and direction and
interconnectivity of how moneyflows.
That's all that it is.
Right.
And all that is doing is justexpressing one aspect of like a
society, that's it.
Right.
And you could place rules onthis society, right.
And you can shape it based onhow you require people settle
(32:49):
and the patterns of developmentthat occur.
Um, and then that just expressesan economy.
So I, I don't know, I have ahard time finding the
difference.
I mean, community developmentmaybe is a little bit more fine
tuned and, and sociallyoriented, like actually thinking
about the different socialconnections that exists in a, in
(33:11):
a particular location.
Um, but everything rolls up intothe economy ultimately.
Um, and I, I was using this kindof, I always use this sort of
analogy, like the, the way we'vedone economic development is
very much like, like very largescale farming, uh, sorta like
(33:36):
Monat mano culture soybeans onthe thousand acres.
Right.
Um, because you know, we lookfor like the silver bullet,
right?
Like we want to attract a reallylarge employer.
We think about it regionallyfrom a very regional scale.
Um, and we sort of lacked thenuances that occur on a very
local basis, but, you know,we're set up to be sort of like
(33:59):
a top-down the state has a lotof control there's county level
economic development agencies,you know, there's large regional
think tanks like pattern.
Right.
Um, and we sort of lack theother than maybe really good
chambers of commerce.
We lack the, on the groundunderstanding of how places
function, um, on a main streetbasis.
(34:21):
Right.
Uh, and so communitydevelopment, I think, is like
the bridge between, um, like thelarge scale farming and, you
know, people doing gardening ontheir own plots.
So, I mean, in that way, reallyit is, it is like economic
gardening, right?
You're, you're attempting tocreate fertile ground for, um,
(34:45):
positive change in communities.
And you're trying to generallybe, I think, inclusive of the
people that are already livingthere versus trying to land a
spaceship on a community tocause major change.
I think it's a more nuancedversion of economic growth.
So you're a trustee in thevillage of sleepy hollow.
(35:08):
You've done work and have astraw, which is a relatively
small community, um, Ossiningalso as a small village, um,
when you're working in thesemunicipalities that is closer, I
think, just because of scale towhat you would call community
(35:31):
development.
So how do you try to organizethem and say, Hey guys, we have
to think about our communities alittle bit differently than we
did before.
Any, any thoughts come to mind?
Cause you, you work with you'vedone.
I mean, even if you talk justabout garner ArtCenter and
Rocklin, it is a, a, um, a,probably a story unto itself
(35:57):
about how to take an old textilemill and try to say, how can we
energize it today?
So examples from the communitiesyou've worked in about how
you've tried to bring communitydevelopment and energy to them.
So, so like how an ecosystememerges.
It takes a really long time, andthis is why I think state
(36:21):
agencies, uh, or even, you know,regional aid agencies, um, are
focused on, I guess what I calllike catastrophic change, like
big sort of more immediatechange versus like incremental
evolutionary change because one,you know, we generally don't
have the patience or theperseverance to ceasing, see
(36:43):
something through over like amulti-decade period.
Um, and two there's, I call itlike catastrophic amounts of
money available to do bigthings.
So oftentimes the way to doeconomic development or that
we've done it traditionally islike that spaceship lands in a
(37:04):
community and it creates majorchange.
Right?
I mean, think like white Plainsor what's happening in your
shell or Yonkers or, um, even tosome extent Peekskill, but we're
going to see more of that overthe coming.
I don't know, probably fiveyears.
Um, so, you know, it's when you,when you do community
(37:26):
development or community scaledevelopment and you're causing,
um, thoughtful, incrementalevolutionary change, uh, you
have to have really goodrelationships with people that
hold power.
Um, you have to understand thecommunity and where power lies
in the, in the community, right.
(37:49):
Who has a voice who doesn't, whoshould have a voice that
doesn't, and then you have tocome up with plans that
everybody can sort of get onboard with.
Right.
Um, and visions.
Right.
So I was the, I was asked to bethe chairman of, uh, the
comprehensive plan it's calledHaverstraw at a long or have a
straw forward.
(38:10):
Um, and I mean, that was anamazing, like, amazing process,
right?
Lots of public outreach sessions, um, embedding in the community
during events, uh, trying toreach the different players in
the community, like multipletimes throughout the process.
(38:31):
Um, and, and make sure thatthey, that they understand like
why a vision is useful, right.
Because it's, it's kind ofshowing you like, this is where
you could go and all thedecisions that you make between
now and there.
I mean, you're never going toexactly get there.
Right.
But you should orient it whileyou're sort of decision-making,
(38:52):
um, to at least put you movingin that, in that direction.
So, you know, whether it'shaving a star garner now, sleepy
hollow, um, it's it'srelationships, I think that are
the most that are the mostimportant.
Um, and figuring also out,figuring out how to, um, elevate
(39:15):
people that are already in thecommunity that have the ability
to make positive change, right.
Because no, one's going to do itthemselves.
You need to find effectively asmall army of people that are
like-minded that share thatvision right.
To advance change.
And it might seem like at firstit's something extremely small,
(39:37):
like, you know, building birdhouses and hanging them from
street trees right.
Or putting in a communitygarden.
Right.
But then ultimately you pullmore people in because they see
positive change.
I think people are attracted topositive change.
Um, and they're on board withmaking, with making more.
(39:59):
Um, and then obviously I didn'ttalk anything about like
regulatory or zoning, but all ofthat stuff, the rules that you
place on the community, um, haveto evolve with the community's
perspective and the community'sdesires.
So wait, pause a second there,because one of the things that
I've always struggled with isthat in the comprehensive plan
(40:19):
process for a community, andthey're trying to think, what do
they want to be?
So they, they you've been, let'ssay you, well, you have been
successful in getting people tocoalesce around a vision.
My struggle has always been fiveyears later.
(40:41):
How do we keep people onmission?
This is where we're going.
People move in, move out, peoplehave different thoughts.
Is that, has that been an issuefor you in thinking about how to
get communities to evolve?
Oh, I'll tell you in 10 years.
No, no.
I, I think, I think the problemis, is that people think about
(41:04):
these processes as like you dothis once every, you know, name
a period of time.
I hadn't had a comp plan done insomething like 25 years, I
think, maybe longer actually.
Um, and hasn't changed it'szoning, right?
So the zoning is almost like theoriginal code, which is just
(41:25):
crazy.
Um, and we did have a wholeconversation about where that
code came from.
It didn't come from local, itdidn't come from us.
It was given to us.
Uh, so, so I think thatengagement and the conversations
(41:46):
about implementing the visionhas to be always public and
happening all the time.
And so figuring out the rightapplication or mode of, of
creating that engagement, Ithink is really important.
So, you know, in Haverstraw, forexample, and this predates the
(42:07):
comp plan, but it's interestingbecause it's information that
sort of fed into the comp plan,um, a number of volunteers and I
, uh, started a food crawl,right.
And it was almost like afunction that it chamber should
do.
Um, but in this case it was likea local arts organization that
was, you know, pushing this foodcrawl.
(42:28):
And it was just sort of like,it's really interesting.
It was to sort of, um,celebrate, you know, people
walking up and down this mainstreet, people of all different
kinds from all differentbackgrounds, uh, like sort of
rubbing elbows and interactingin a place where there is in
north Rockland.
Right.
There's traditionally a lot of,um, fear and racial animosity.
(42:54):
Wait, wait, hold on, hold on onesec.
So crawl.
So I spent a year in England, soI know what a pub crawl is,
where you go from one pub toanother, to another to another.
So are you saying that if I'mjust imagining what, what a food
crawl is, different ethnicitiesstopping in different places
(43:17):
with a group of people and thenintroducing different cultures
along the way?
I don't know.
Yeah.
It's really wild.
I mean, have, is trust Godsomething like, I mean, we would
get 25 restaurant there's morethan 25 restaurants in less than
something like a four blockradius in Haverstraw.
It's really insane.
So we would get around 25restaurants joining this event
(43:40):
and, you know, the doors wouldbe open and people would stop in
and basically get something liketop us.
I mean, you could sit down andget a full, full service meal,
but, but we would encouragepeople to hit as many of them as
they could.
Um, yeah, I mean, and there'severything it's like Caribbean,
Puerto Rican, Dominican, uh,Ecuadorian, Mexican, um, Asian
(44:05):
there's, there's an amazing likeFrench fusion restaurant in
downtown Havis DRA.
So, you know, there were, therewas, and there is like this
really amazing opportunity toget people from different
cultures to interact over food,which is a lot easier to get
them to do than anything else.
(44:25):
And then we added beer to, weshut up, we shut a street down
and had a, you know, a gardenand invited six, like local or
regional breweries to, to selltheir beer in the street.
And it was, it's just anamazing, you know, there's live
music, it's an incredible event.
Um, and it came out of likeFacebook conversations on a
(44:47):
community page where peoplesaying like, I'm afraid to go to
have a straw.
And it's like, well, do youever?
And they're like, well, no,because I'm afraid.
And I'm like, okay, so we'llhost this safe space event for
you so that you feel safe andcomfortable and you can
experience like all of thisreally amazing food and realized
(45:08):
that the people that are eitherrunning these businesses or live
in the community, aren't goingto bite you, you know, when you
show up to, to try this food.
Um, and they did.
And the, the foot traffic tothese restaurants after we
started this, like actuallyincreased.
And now there are, there arepeople that never, that, like,
(45:30):
they'd never considered going tohave us draw downtown Haverstraw
for, for lunch or dinner.
And now they're sort of likeregulars in, you know, like a
central American restaurant.
It's really absolutelyincredible.
Um, what it does is it just likeshifts the perception or the
window of what people perceiveto the acceptable, you know,
(45:51):
this, and th these, these issuesare kind of like across the
board, what do people perceiveto be acceptable right.
In their community?
Like what's normal, right?
And if you can kind of nudgethem out of that safe space, uh,
and into some new perception, Imean, that's what community
(46:13):
development is.
Like, you were radicallychanging how people think about
themselves or their community,um, to create opportunity.
So, so I had wondered what yourthoughts were going to be about
the future of main street, butit sounds like you've, you've
given me clues here that there,there, it was, things are always
(46:36):
meant to evolve and will therebe, you know, people always fear
Amazon will take over the worldin terms of everything will be
delivered, but will there alwaysbe this need for gathering
places and how do we sell them?
And what does, what do we needto add to energize them as well?
(46:59):
So as people become wealthier,get educated, travel experience,
different things, they demandmore, right.
They want meaningfulrelationships, meaningful
(47:21):
experiences.
They want to buy meaningfulproducts.
Right.
Uh, and they want to, generally,when this happens, they want to
support their local economy andbuy things produced locally,
right?
Like we, that's sort of, that'sa big macro trend and all the
consumer commodity products thatwe get, which you might, you
(47:44):
used to get them at circuit cityor wherever tops.
You remember tops.
Uh, all of those things aremeaningless.
They, they don't bring meaningthey don't bring happiness.
They're completely meaningless.
Um, yeah, you could watch yourfavorite show, but that's
meaningless.
(48:05):
I think the pandemic is showingpeople like how meaningless a
lot of their life was.
And this is actually one reasonwhy a ton of people got into
gardening.
I don't know if you've noticedthis, like, people are like out
in the dirt, cause they'rerealizing like, oh my God, how
(48:25):
was I living like disconnected?
Right.
And then you're forced intoactual, like forced to
disconnection.
So you realize how disconnectedyou were before, right.
When you actually have to stepback and, you know, assess where
you're at.
Um, lack of connection to natureand the community.
(48:47):
Um, and we, you know, we kind ofsaw this, we saw this happen in
the last recession, right?
When everybody gets shaken away,like, Hey, the system's not
working.
Some of it's gonna go away.
Wow.
That's scary.
Right.
People become resourceful.
They care more about theircommunity and positive change
(49:08):
emerges it's as the economybecomes more static and
entrenched.
Right.
And is growing on the results ofthat shakeup, that's the most
dangerous period because that'swhen there's like a glomeration
and larger and larger companieseating everything up.
(49:28):
But then you get to the pointwhere it explodes again and
everything reshaped.
So I would argue like thissystem that we have, where we go
for very long periods of timewithout economic disturbance,
right.
And then there's the spectacularblow up.
(49:49):
Um, that's not helpful for mainstreet at all.
And you know, that might be goodfor very large national and
international corporations,right.
If they can weather that extremeblowup and usually the way that
they, whether it is the federalgovernment comes in and helps
them out.
Um, they're not there for ourmain streets.
(50:10):
So I would argue that moreinnovation and more change and
more disruption occurring moreregularly versus just
entrenching, um, powerfulinterests, right?
Over longer periods of time.
I think that's probably a bettersystem for us, but mean tell
that to DC.
There's, there's no way thatthey're going to embrace that
(50:32):
kind of a strategy.
But, but, but Jared, it soundsas if that through the pandemic,
you, you almost had this, you,I'm not going to say you got
what you want, but that in yourtheory here of this ultimate
disruption, you shut the entireeconomy down.
(50:52):
People have an opportunity tothink what's important to them.
Therefore, our main streets isthere this incredible
opportunity for them to, okay.
Yeah.
I mean, only if you think aboutit, right.
There were ways for all of us tosupport the places that we loved
throughout this thing to keepthem alive.
(51:16):
Right.
And the places that we lovesurvived in general.
Right.
In general, I mean, I couldthink anecdotally about like my
community or a bunch ofcommunities that I frequent,
it's the places that we lovethat survived.
And it's the places that we kindof didn't, or that weren't
really managed.
(51:37):
Well, it was like, uh, you know,that could be better that
didn't.
And so you, we we've always seenthis in a place like New York,
right?
The restaurants are changing allthe time.
It's because New York has apopulation of people that goes
(51:57):
out to eat all the time and theyknow what a good restaurant is
and they've got options.
So if you're not really good andpeople don't love you, you're
not surviving in New York.
And we kind of have, I mean,that's what the pandemic did for
most main streets.
Um, and certainly malls.
(52:18):
I mean, I don't know anyone thatloves them all, uh, you know, or
a big box store, you know, maybesure you could find some people
that love some big box store.
Um, but that's what it is.
And we keep the places that we,that we love.
And, and if there's, if you havea built environment that reduces
(52:42):
the barriers to starting abusiness, well, that's more
chances that you will eventuallyget a business that you love
that will stick around for sometime.
Um, and in my opinion, it's notthe large, floorplate retail,
large square footage, retailwith no demising walls, those
things, aren't, those thingsaren't supportive of startup
(53:05):
businesses or small businesses.
It's the 12 foot widestorefront, right.
Or the, you know, less than 20foot wide storefront on a 25
foot lot on a main street.
Those are the things that spurinnovation because the barrier
to entry is generally, you know,to rent, to accessing the space,
(53:29):
to, to renovating it becauseit's generally small, you don't
have to renovate a 20,000 squarefoot space, um, et cetera.
So, so is, okay.
Some people are fans of whathappened to, let's say a beacon
or a Rhinebeck because they seeit as you know, it, it, it has
(53:53):
evil.
Some people look at it and say,it's been gentrified.
It's not the way it used to be.
Uh, we can't afford to livehere.
Where do you come at?
And in that argument over, youknow, we have to protect and we
yet we have to evolve.
Yeah.
So it's too, we have it's toospiky.
(54:15):
Why are, why do some communitiessucceed and others don't right.
Why do some well succeed?
I guess that's the, you know, isit success if you gentrify and
displace people?
You know, I don't, I don't knowto the people that are being
displaced.
Like if they're actually beingdisplaced, no, that's not
(54:35):
successful, but if they can geta job downtown right.
And do better than they weredoing before, like net net, even
if rents increased, there's thepossibility that they become a
manager of a restaurant thatdoes really well.
I've seen it happen inHaverstraw.
Right.
Right.
You know, Latino, uh,first-generation where immigrant
(55:01):
young people getting a job as abus boy, it's their first job.
They're in high school.
And eventually they become ageneral manager and that
wouldn't have happened with somelevel of what we call
gentrification.
It wouldn't happen.
And sometimes I think like, youknow, th th there's there's the
conversation aroundgentrification is like, just not
(55:23):
nuanced enough, right.
Up to a certain point, it'sintegration up to a certain
point, right.
Once it tips the balance andgoes over into all wealthy white
people, it's no longerintegration.
Right.
It's, you know, you'reexcluding, right.
But we do exclusionary practicesall the time.
We've got plenty of wealthycommunities that are white only
(55:45):
today.
So if we have the opportunity tointegrate communities and bring
wealth and opportunity to peoplethat didn't have it, I say we do
it, but we have to figure outhow to accommodate people of all
needs as that evolution occurs.
And that's what affordablehousing can do.
(56:09):
Um, like regulated affordablehousing, where, you know, it is
permanently affordable, um,cooperatives, you know, that
might be regulated.
I think all of options are sortof on the table to keep a place
accessible, but this alwayscomes back to why are there
(56:29):
superstar places and why arethere not like, why is it so
spiky?
Why, why aren't all boats risingat the same time?
And I personally would arguethat it's a, it's a racial
thing.
Um, it's a racial issue.
And I would, I would, I wouldrecommend, um, reading.
(56:51):
I believe he's at the universityof Minnesota.
It's Myron Orfield.
I don't know if you know who heis.
Um, he was really influential inthe Mount Laurel decision in New
Jersey and the Mount Laureldecision is effectively, no
community should quote, bear theburden.
And these are like, these arejudges from the states Supreme
(57:13):
court in New Jersey, nocommunity should quote, bear the
burden of providing all theaffordable housing for an entire
region.
In effect.
What they're saying is you can'twarehouse people of color in a
single community so that all theother communities can, you know,
remain 80% plus sort of likewhite and wealthy.
(57:36):
Um, it's getting at this issueof spiking this, like, it
doesn't have to be a zero sumgame here, right?
Like we've seen integratedcommunities be successful.
I would argue beacon is one ofthose.
It's still, it's still, uh, likea diverse place with people from
(57:57):
all different kinds of economicbackgrounds.
Can it go too far and tip over?
Yeah.
But that's their job to figurethat out.
Wow.
Dr.
Jared describe, uh, thedemographics of Haverstraw,
which, you know, so well, and Iknow fairly, right, right.
So, you know, have a straw hat,a straw is a, an immigrant
(58:20):
community, mostly Latino.
Um, you know, it's historicallyan immigrant community from, you
know, Irish to, uh, formerslaves, you know, escaping the
south to come and work in thenorth to, um, you know, Puerto
Rican starting in the 1920s, youknow, evolving into Dominican,
(58:43):
starting in the late sixties.
And now it's evolving intocentral Americans and that trend
started around 2000.
Um, and so, you know, even inthat community, it's fairly
spiky, right.
Is it's, uh, it's segregated.
I mean, it's a segregatedcommunity.
Like sleepy hollow is likeOssining is where you've got,
(59:07):
you know, outer suburban areasthat are ringing a downtown,
which is predominantly people ofcolor, um, and low low-income
people.
Uh, and then there have beensort of luxury developments
built, but they're almost builtlike a gated community with
little integration, physicalintegration into the downtown,
which is changing now finally, Imean, there's, there's
(59:30):
development occurring.
That's like better linkingpedestrian access, uh, and
integrating developments likeright into the downtown area.
But I, you know, I personallywould argue these, even these
spiky developments where it'shigh luxury, but it's on the
edge.
Right.
(59:51):
I would prefer, you know, mixed,uh, affordable plus luxury right
in the downtown, like right inthe center.
Um, because we need to haveintegration and we need to be
attacking these segregationpatterns, not just on a regional
scale, like what New Jersey isdoing.
(01:00:11):
And I would argue New York needsto do the same thing.
I mean, Chappaqua, we're comingfor you.
Uh, you know, it has to be doneon a, on a community by
community basis.
All right.
So stop there for a second.
I have always enjoyed ourconversations.
(01:00:32):
I always learn something aboutit since we pay you an enormous
sum for being a guest on this.
Why don't we just end with, ifpeople enjoyed your perspective
and thoughts about communities,how do they find emerging urban
concepts?
(01:00:52):
Great.
So, you know, anyone can visitwww.emergentgroup.com.
Um, you know, Google me on theinternet, find me on LinkedIn,
Jared Rodriguez.
Um, you know, I'm happy, I'mhappy to chat with, with anybody
really.
It's sort of, you know, it's,it's really important for us to
(01:01:12):
have conversations about how thephysical world impacts us.
We don't do that enough.
Um, we like to live in a socialworld, right.
And be on Facebook and be havingpolitical debates, no like roads
and buildings and sidewalks andtrees and rivers, right.
These impact how we live ourlives for real, like in the real
(01:01:35):
world, it impacts your health in, in text, your longevity, it
impacts who your kids are goingto be around who your child
might marry.
Right.
Like, it's, this is reallyimportant, real life stuff.
And we should be havingconversations about how to make
it better.
I mean, we've only got like onego around and it doesn't really
(01:01:56):
last that long.
So why shouldn't it be as greatas it possibly can while we're
here?
I mean, really what are wewaiting for?
Right.
I think that's just the perfectway to end this discussion.
Um, Jared, thank you so much foryour time.
This is pattern and paradigm,um, and, uh, we will be back
(01:02:16):
with you next fall.
Thank
Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
You for tuning to patterns and paradigms the
pattern podcast.
For more information about thisepisode, visit our website
pattern for progress.org forwardslash podcast.
(01:02:54):
[inaudible].
We are experiencing a paradigm shift, a fundamental
change in the way we usually dothings.
We are intentionally choosing tosee the silver lining
opportunity arises.
We can shine a light on thethings that weren't working well
(00:25):
on those things that weren'treally working at all, we can
regroup reevaluate andre-engineer it's time to explore
new patterns and paradigms thosethat inspire us to rise above
the chaos and explore how theconditions of today and take us
(00:47):
to a better tomorrow patternsand paradigms the pattern
podcast from Hudson valleypattern for progress.
Your listening to season twoepisode 21 urban concepts with
your host pattern, president andCEO, Jonathan Dropkin.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Hi everyone, and welcome to patterns and
paradigms.
We hope you enjoyed our lastepisode with Simone development.
Today's episode will be our lastuntil we resume after labor day,
while we wish you all time to beoutside.
We have a great deal of work totend to over the next three
(01:27):
months.
Um, we will return with a greatfall lineup.
If you have any topics in mind,drop us an email, of course,
feel free to use the break tocatch up with past episodes by
downloading them through applepodcast or wherever you find
your favorite one, or, um, well,actually not, or, but, and
(01:54):
please take a moment to shareone of your favorites with
someone else so that they can beintroduced to patterns and
paradigms this week's bubble ortrend supplies.
Supplies supply kind of remindsme of the old Gomer Pyle.
If you're old enough to remembersurprised, surprise, surprise.
(02:16):
But when we return in the fall,we will see where the pandemic
induced supply shortages are,whether it is food as all the
restaurants open at once and areall demanding, they need
supplies or labor as demand forproduction heats up.
(02:39):
There seems to be far moresupply side shortages than
originally anticipated.
If you were looking to build thenew house, good luck as there is
a shortage of lumber.
This one is already atexacerbating, a shortage of new
homes driving through the roof.
(03:01):
Pardon the pun.
If it continues, expect the fedreserve to step in and revisit
interest rates, so bubble ortrend.
Well, we got to look at this oneas a trend, at least until
September and that's as far aswe have to weigh in on this, the
economy and society for thatmatter is going through what we
(03:24):
would call the great resettling.
There are a number of thingsthat need to find the
equilibrium post pandemic.
So while this might appear to bea bubble, we think of it more
like a trend as we settle allparts of our society to a new
(03:44):
leveling.
And w w we're struggling to findthe right words here.
But remember, this is somethingthat hadn't happened in a
hundred years.
It is going to take a while tosee just where we are.
So I'm here with my partner andpattern, Joe Cheika the New York
times of the weekend.
(04:05):
Joe had an article on worlddemographic trends as weird
pattern consider ourselvespretty good demographers, or at
least pretty good analyst ofdemographic information.
There was a lot to digest inthat article.
Unfortunately, we never seem tobe able to get people as excited
(04:28):
as we are about demographics,but underneath most societal
trends, there is an element ofdemography.
What was your favorite takeawayfrom the article Joe?
Well, it was a little depressingto be honest with you, but
(04:49):
there's a lot of takeaways.
And I think it's reallyimportant that we understand
what, what was behind thisarticle in that we're losing
people, we're losing population.
There's something out therecalled a replacement rate, which
needs to be at 2.1.
(05:09):
And that's simply, um, theamount of people needed, um,
that replaces our society.
Uh, that kind of works like forevery two adults.
There needs to be two kids.
That's correct.
And there's something called thefertility rate.
And so when the replacementrate, I'm sorry, when the
(05:30):
fertility right, gets a littlecomplicated drops below 2.1, we
lose population.
And ever since 1971, ourfertility rate has been below
2.1 today.
It's actually about 1.7 and itis an issue.
It's not only an issue here, butit's an issue around the entire
(05:53):
glow, 183 countries andterritories out of 195 will have
fertility rates below thereplacement rate by 2100 that's
yeah, that's not too far away.
Right.
And it's actually forecastedthat we're going to start
shrinking by 2062, according tothe university of Washington.
(06:18):
And even if we rapidly increasethis rate, it would take decades
to take effect.
The lack of immigration is anissue, but it's not a long-term
solution because the othercountries are facing the same
issues we are.
So it would be sort of a, youknow, about a swap out if you
will.
People leave in countries thatare losing population into other
(06:41):
countries that are losingpopulation, it's a lose, lose
scenario, Joe, Joe, it is one ofthe solutions for, you know, I
don't want to be, um, one of thegreat parts about America is
that immigration has led toprobably what makes one of the
(07:07):
many reasons of what makes thiscountry as great as it is when
we have allowed for immigration,the blending of different
cultures, thinking ideas.
It was what this country, atleast in my belief was founded
on.
Absolutely.
And one of the componentscertainly, um, that immigration
(07:30):
allows is fixing laborshortages.
And yet, you know, if you wantto shut the door and you have
labor shortages, you're shuttingoff combined with what you're
talking about, you know, the lowfertility rate and being below
the replacement rate, Joe, oneof our favorite discussions has
(07:51):
come up many times last week wasthat all my God, we're going to
be building in our, um,community more housing and the
impact on schools.
You have an opinion on that one.
Yeah, just a little bit.
So the old adage is when youbuild a house or an apartment,
(08:12):
you increase the schoolpopulation by 2.5 kids.
We haven't found the 0.5 kid,but can you imagine 2.5 kids
that was based on a Rutgersstudy done many decades ago, and
people on zoning boards andplanning words and town boards,
they're still stuck on thatright now.
We're actually probably about0.6 or 0.7 kids per unit.
(08:36):
So it's substantially lower.
And so the argument of you builda subdivision of a hundred, a
hundred units or a hundredhomes.
We're going to add 2.5 kids perso it's 250 kids per 100 units.
Not happening, not happening atall.
People are just not having kids.
(08:59):
And, and it's a big impact.
The population pyramid, whichshould be like exactly a
pyramid.
It should be the younger peopleon the bottom and the older
people.
Well on top and the bottomsupports the top.
Well, the population pyramid hasactually been reversed.
There's less on the bottom, moreon top.
So what happens that populationpyramid, if you think of a
(09:22):
triangle it's standing on itspoint, it's going to fall over.
Why does that happen?
Well, not enough gen Z andmillennials are having kids.
And if they do have a family, aswe like to say one and done the
birth, the birth rate itself hasactually dropped by 4% during
the pandemic on, you know,popular belief, oh, people are
(09:46):
probably going to have more kidsbecause they're all home and not
doing anything else didn'thappen.
So for many people, it's aneconomic decision, which is
unfortunate, social security.
Again, if you look at thatpopulation pyramid, social
security is going to have a bigimpact who pays for all of the
elderly population, retiringwith an aging population.
(10:08):
We're going to need morehealthcare providers and
services.
Other workforce issues come intoplay more than lack of skilled
people.
We have a lack of peoplealtogether by 2026, there's
going to be an estimatedworkforce deficit of some 6
million people.
That's only five years away.
(10:28):
Baby boomers were retiring atthe rate of 2 million per year.
Last year, 3 million retired.
The United nations actually saidthat before the next century
there'll be two people dependentupon each worker.
So a third depends on I'm sorry.
Two thirds depends on one thirdlabor force participation rate
(10:53):
dropped from 5% in 1982, between1980 and 2019.
The percentage of, of the, of agiven population is employed or
actively seeking employment isavailable for that's the
definition of the labor forceparticipation rate about 7
(11:13):
million able-bodied people chosenot to work millennials.
They're inheriting wealth fromthe baby boomers.
The opioid crisis pulled almosta million prime age men from the
workforce in 2015 alone.
Then some 38% of men aged 25 to34, still living with their
parents.
(11:34):
Those three elements, right?
There are huge demographicinput, implicate implications,
automation and technology willhelp to some degree, but there's
more critical mass.
There is more of a critical massof robots building and providing
direct services.
Meaning we have a labor issue,technology can't fully replace
(11:59):
human beings.
We need targeted skills andtraining with higher retention
rate of all workers, collegesand universities will need to
enhance their services, theirprograms, and overall their
educator education model toincorporate more non-traditional
students, part-timers parentswith the child where people
(12:21):
taking care of their elderlyparents or grandparents.
So it's going to be a paradigmshift from everything from
working in a manufacturingcenter, to working in a
warehouse distribution center tocollege programs, looking for
their next student.
(12:41):
Well, if that doesn't give youenough to think about between
now and our return just afterlabor day, I don't know what
does demographics.
I know it's just numbers, but asjudges pointed out all the
realities of what those numbersmean.
So thank you.
(13:03):
You're welcome.
Our guest today is JaredRodriguez.
Jared is one of our favoriteyoung thought leaders in the
area of community development.
Jared is degreed in civilengineering and architectural
studies.
He worked eight years realestate development, but
(13:23):
distinctly focused on greenenergy components.
Jared is now full time as theprincipal of his own consulting
firm, emergent urban concepts,which helps communities
determined who they want to be.
Jared has an opinion on justabout everything, but they're
(13:43):
educated opinions.
They're based on having spentyears trying to figure out how
things work.
You'll hear many of them intoday's discussion.
Hi, Jared, how you doing?
Doing well?
How are you?
Pretty good?
You know this for our listeners,this, you know, I'll repeat it a
(14:06):
few times probably, but thiswill be our last as we take our
summer break and we couldn't bemore delighted than to have you
with us.
Um, how did you know that thisvirus was not just a virus, but
was going to be, uh, somethingmore than that?
(14:27):
So I, I mean, this is absolutelycrazy.
I read an article by, I cannotremember who it was, but he was
talking about exponential growthand how, you know, massive
growth can be hidden in plainsight without even kind of
knowing it.
So this was around the timewhere they like put a cord in
(14:48):
around, or maybe just beforethey put a cordon around new,
um, that was the first whateverthat was.
Yeah.
I mean, it wasn't the first,right?
So like my, my wife is a nursepractitioner.
She works in Manhattan andthroughout November and
December, they were seeing COVIDcases.
They just didn't know it wasCOVID.
Um, so the first, like major, Iguess, major outbreak that we
(15:12):
were aware of, right.
As a, uh, state public healthauthority was newer shell, but
it definitely looking back wasnot the first time I read this
article about exponential growthand how it's sort of like hidden
in plain sight.
And then all of a sudden itskyrockets, right.
And hospitals are shutting downbecause they're re you know,
(15:33):
reaching capacity.
And that could happen in likeless than a one week period.
Right.
Just sort of what weexperienced.
Um, I actually went to London onMarch.
I think it was March 8th.
And so went to London after thenew Rochelle guy was identified
(15:53):
and yeah, and then we're an N 95mask throughout all the airports
and on the airplane.
And people were like making funof me, you know, in the subway
too.
Right.
People were sort of like, what,you know, what are you doing?
Why are you doing that?
And I'm like, are you, you'rewatching Asia, right.
Like they're doing it.
So we should be doing it.
(16:14):
And this is an air, you know,this is an airborne disease.
Right.
And people, and then, you know,even the CDC was saying, it's
not an airborne disease.
Right.
I don't know what the ulteriormotives were, but very unclear
communication the beginning.
Um, and so by the time I wasreturning, it was like, right
before the shutdown on March13th, it was like Friday the
(16:37):
13th.
And, uh, you know, by then itwas pretty clear.
Cause I think the market wascrashing and you know, in, in
London it was starting to get alittle bit freaky.
Uh, you know, and then youstarted seeing like, everybody's
starting to wear masks and yeah.
So do you have any problemcoming home from London or was
it before they remember thatsome point the president came
(17:00):
said no more flights fromEurope?
No, no, no.
It was fine.
Um, coming back, uh, and it wasactually like really easy to get
back.
I was just sort of freaked out,join the clubs and um, I mean,
luckily I didn't, I didn't getit.
(17:22):
And very few people that I knowdid, but obviously it was like a
tremendous tragedy and it's oneexample of, um, our
infrastructure kind of failingus.
Right.
And in this case it was publichealth infrastructure.
So I I'm one of the people thatbelieve this was a full-out
failure to identify a risk andtake appropriate action.
(17:47):
Um, and it was, and we, youknow, we paid the price with,
you know, hundreds of thousandsof deaths, which is[inaudible]
600,000, you know?
Yeah.
All right.
So Jared, for the benefit of ourlisteners, um, let's describe
what emergent urban conceptsare, which is your own baby, I
think.
(18:07):
And then you also work forLeFrak development.
Sure.
So actually left is a client ofemerging now, I'm sorry.
I mean, full on, you know, in myconsulting firm, uh, I've, I've
had this from sort of off and onactually since 2007 when I was
(18:29):
in undergrad.
So, uh, with a few friends ofmine, we started a consulting
firm that focused on planningfor large scale renewables, um,
mostly in new England andWestern New York.
So at the time there were a lotof wind power developers that
were approaching municipalitiesand industrial development
authorities.
Um, and asking for deals likeapprovals on these really large
(18:53):
projects, because that was, youknow, in 2007, that was the last
time that, um, wind wascompetitive with natural gas.
Uh, obviously like the recessionturned everything upside down
and the federal government madea decision to use natural gas as
a bridge fuel.
And they pumped a lot of fundsinto development of natural gas
(19:14):
and the price collapsed.
Um, and then when became lesscompetitive.
So I actually started took, uh,almost like a 10 year I, it is
from doing consulting, um, andgot a master's in real estate
development.
Um, you know, coming off of myundergraduate degree in civil
structural engineering andarchitectural studies.
(19:38):
Um, and then, you know, went towork for, uh, the lift rack
organization in New York.
Um, and I had always been reallyinterested in real estate
development.
It was sort of the thing that Iwanted to do as my, my career.
Um, you know, I worked forMartin Ginsburg on Haverstraw
and a few other projects.
(19:59):
Um, you know, when, when againwent away to college and then
started working with the leftracks and at rougher, I, um, I
mostly managed energy and energyconservation and then
sustainability compliancebecause, you know, over the past
10 years there's been sort of arevolution in how, um, emissions
(20:20):
from buildings is regulated andhow energy consumption is
regulated.
Uh, and so, you know, I kind oflived through the whole, um, how
do you convert tens of millionsof square feet of, of, uh,
residential and commercial spaceto all LEDs?
How do you, um, you know, takeserious, like the issue of lack
(20:45):
of insulation, um, and then howdo you kind of cut across a lot
of different sectors to achieve,you know, solutions that meet
objectives, um, that are likevery broad, right?
And so that's sort of, that'ssort of what I think my
expertise is, is like I couldlook at objectives, um, coming
(21:06):
from a lot of differentstakeholders, right.
Who might have like verydifferent points of view.
And I can understand whenthey're saying the same thing so
that you can, you know, for lackof a better word, killed two
birds with one with one stone.
I mean, I, I hate that.
I hate that.
Uh, but, um, but yeah, so, so,so yeah, I mean, uh, the
(21:27):
experience with blood Frick wasamazing.
I mean, they are city builders.
They, they build at scales thatfew people are familiar with.
I mean, they've, they'veacquired, uh, rail yards from,
from, uh, different railcompanies and built, you know,
hundreds of buildings, uh, newcities springing up from nothing
like just south of the Hobokenterminal on the Jersey city,
(21:48):
waterfront, um, you know,battery park city, uh, they were
the first to build their batterypark city.
So they're a company that hasvision.
They don't have the reputationfor being visionaries, but they
really are.
Um, which is kind of, kind ofinteresting.
So I was lucky to work for them.
So I, I grew up in Queens andthere was LeFrak city, which was
(22:12):
one of, I think their earliestprojects, which is how I know of
them.
So let's, well actually I wasgoing to go in one direction.
So let me actually go in adifferent direction, which is,
um, so New York city, the lackof people returning to work all
(22:34):
these tall, urban skyscrapers inNew York city, many of which are
still far below capacity.
Have you thought much aboutsomething like, what do we do
with them?
And yeah, of course.
Yeah.
So what do we do Jared?
(22:55):
Well, what's interesting though,is leading up to the pandemic,
the amount of density inskyscrapers, like office was
increasing dramatically, uh, youknow, it increased dramatically.
It was like the WIWORKphenomenon, right?
Cram as many people as you caninto a single space, you know,
the partitions come down,everybody's working really close
(23:16):
to each other.
So there was a dynamic wherelike we were at extremely high
density, like sometimes doublewhat it traditionally was like,
certainly triple what it was inthe sixties or the seventies
when most of the building stockwas built.
I mean, think sixth avenue we'rehaving to the America's right.
Or Madison.
Um, so we were already likereally high and it was almost to
(23:40):
some extent, you know,detrimental to the neighborhood
because there you, theseneighborhoods with mostly office
workers and the entire retailecosystem, right.
Everything is oriented to nineto five.
So when people leave, it dies,it's just dead.
I mean, we've all experiencedwhat it's like in Midtown, you
know, on an evening outside ofsay the theater district.
(24:02):
Right.
Um, it's totally dead.
So, uh, and it's more dead now.
So, so I think, honestly, theanswer is we need to make fully
livable neighborhoods.
Every neighborhood needs to belike fully livable and
functional and not just caterto, or serve one youth, right.
(24:27):
Or one type of person.
It has to have high levels ofdiversity.
And that's how you createeconomic success.
Because if you think about howwe build or develop communities,
I mean, it's really not unlike anatural ecosystem, right.
I mean, it's, it's, ourecosystem is one that we build,
right.
(24:47):
Um, but it's usually highlydiverse, highly interconnected.
And the only thing that preventsthose things from happening are
our own silly rules, um, zoningand exactly.
And, and other restrictions thatdefy what our natural order is.
Our natural order is to clusterand do a high diversity of
(25:09):
things in, within generally awalkable, um, uh, scale.
So we've been doing that forthousands of years.
What, what changed?
I mean, I could, I could getinto what changed, which goes
back probably to 1900 or the1890s.
So let me ask you this thencould a skyscraper, you know,
(25:32):
one of these 80 story,residential towers or something,
or commercial, you know,commercial, uh, more of the
residential of the higher ones,but what if they were mixed use
and you create, create, youknow, like every third floor was
actually residential and thenthe bottom floors were actually
(25:53):
retail and then which they oftenare.
I just saw this new one openedthis eighties story one.
Did you notice the one with theoutdoor elevators there?
It's amazing.
Maybe, maybe, yeah.
I've, I've seen a bunch ofproposals lately and I think
(26:14):
people are keying into this, andthis is something that was
happening before, before thepandemic.
I mean, the pandemic sort oflike an accelerator, right.
Nothing that happened during thepandemic was new, not one thing
was new, it was just extreme andaccelerating.
Right.
So all the trends that we'reseeing are just accelerated
(26:36):
trends that were already there.
And one of those trends wasmixed use skyscrapers, right.
Um, and incorporating differentuses.
And typically what they, whatthey'll do is like, you know,
the, the, the highest part ofthe skyscraper is condo.
The middle is a hotel and thebottom is retail and office.
(26:57):
Right.
That makes sense.
Cause that's where the value is.
Um, but you know, I would gofurther and say that artists and
manufacturing is something thatcould happen in some of these
large floorplate buildings.
I mean, no reason why you can'tdo small batch manufacturing,
um, especially if they are corespaces that have less value.
(27:19):
Um, there's probably some levelof boutique manufacturing that
could, uh, that could occur.
I mean, a lot of the stuff Iwent to Brooklyn, um, a lot of
stuff that's coming through theHudson valley.
Uh, but you know, this is sortof the problem of like building
purpose built buildings, right?
Like the building is built for avery specific use, kind of like
(27:41):
a Walmart, right.
It's how do you let it evolve?
Because throughout themillennia, the history of
humans, right.
Uses and things, and villagesand settlements evolve, right.
They have to change.
So why are we throwing all theseresources that like a throwaway
landscape, it kind of doesn'tmake sense versus like, what did
(28:03):
they do in the 18, you know,1880s and nineties in the
industrial revolution, theybuilt buildings that could
become sort of anything.
Right.
And that's like garner artcenter, a lot of our old factory
and mill buildings throughoutthe Hudson valley.
So, you know, back then it wasbuilt to host manufacturing.
(28:24):
And, you know, in the eightiesand nineties, they started to
attract, you know, artists, um,and scenic design shops and all
these other types of uses.
And today there's a breweryboom, or there has been for the
past almost 10 years.
Um, so what is what happensnext?
And we're actually seeing, uh,like a hospitality boom in the
(28:45):
Hudson valley.
And I would argue that that willcontinue as the link between the
New York tourism industry andthe Hudson valley continues to
be solidified.
I mean, we're going to continueto ride this, this tourism,
boom.
And it's not just forinternational tourists that are
coming though.
That's, that's a big, big marketand it will, I think, continue
(29:06):
to be a big market once we getout of, uh, COVID maybe bigger
than ever before, becauseeverybody's just dying to not be
cooped up in their houseanymore.
Um, but it's also like thisweekend market.
I mean, we've seen a major trendreversals in, uh, Metro, north
ridership, right?
It's it's off peak.
(29:27):
I mean, off peak is booming andweekend summers like summer
weekends, um, and fall weekendsare just booming.
Like you can't even today,actually last weekend.
Um, not a seat available on aMetro north train, headed back
into the city from Peekskill,uh, on a Sunday evening, wait,
(29:50):
Jared.
So let's just set this up forour listeners.
So New York city is this massiveurban, um, center to our south.
And then the Hudson valley,which is primarily our listeners
is, um, for patterns.
Listeners is nine counties have,which we're going to, I think
(30:11):
your tourism transition isreally helpful, but I want to
ask one question and then we'regoing to bring you up to the
Hudson valley since you haveyour, your you've worked in both
New York city and the Hudsonvalley.
So, um, are you bullish?
Will New York city come back asa young adult?
Yeah, of course.
(30:31):
Right.
I mean, unless we have apopulation collapsed, right?
Cause no one's having children,New York times is a thing.
Yeah.
But I would say that for everyperson that says that they want
to leave New York, there's 10people lined up saying that they
want to be there.
So when prices readjust spotsget filled sort of immediately.
(30:54):
Um, and it's always been thatway.
It's always been that way.
We have a lot of neighbors inWestchester and Rockland that
moved here in the seventies andeighties and said, you could
keep the city.
I like rest jester and Rockland.
Right.
But for every person that livedthere eventually with someone to
fill their shoes or 10 people tofill their shoes and that's what
we've seen happen.
So the city always reinventsitself and is dynamic and
(31:18):
changes.
I mean, I know peoplecatastrophize over sea level
rise, but the city's going toreinvent and find its way.
There's been sea level.
There's been catastrophic sealevel rise for lower Manhattan
since the 18, since the 17hundreds.
Right.
And it somehow changed andbecame something else.
So landfilling is notimpossible.
(31:38):
We're really good at it.
Well, battery park city, the newurban park that was just open
that's this floating 2.4 acres.
It's it's fascinating to me.
All right.
So explain if I'm, if I'm right.
I think there's a differencebetween economic development and
community development and youhave been very active in
(32:03):
communities like Haverstraw andOssining is there.
So what is community developmentversus economic development?
If you agree that there is adifference?
Um, I have a hard time finding adifference because although all
I think economic development is,or the economy is, is just the
(32:26):
it's, this, the economy is thespeed and direction and
interconnectivity of how moneyflows.
That's all that it is.
Right.
And all that is doing is justexpressing one aspect of like a
society, that's it.
Right.
And you could place rules onthis society, right.
And you can shape it based onhow you require people settle
(32:49):
and the patterns of developmentthat occur.
Um, and then that just expressesan economy.
So I, I don't know, I have ahard time finding the
difference.
I mean, community developmentmaybe is a little bit more fine
tuned and, and sociallyoriented, like actually thinking
about the different socialconnections that exists in a, in
(33:11):
a particular location.
Um, but everything rolls up intothe economy ultimately.
Um, and I, I was using this kindof, I always use this sort of
analogy, like the, the way we'vedone economic development is
very much like, like very largescale farming, uh, sorta like
(33:36):
Monat mano culture soybeans onthe thousand acres.
Right.
Um, because you know, we lookfor like the silver bullet,
right?
Like we want to attract a reallylarge employer.
We think about it regionallyfrom a very regional scale.
Um, and we sort of lacked thenuances that occur on a very
local basis, but, you know,we're set up to be sort of like
(33:59):
a top-down the state has a lotof control there's county level
economic development agencies,you know, there's large regional
think tanks like pattern.
Right.
Um, and we sort of lack theother than maybe really good
chambers of commerce.
We lack the, on the groundunderstanding of how places
function, um, on a main streetbasis.
(34:21):
Right.
Uh, and so communitydevelopment, I think, is like
the bridge between, um, like thelarge scale farming and, you
know, people doing gardening ontheir own plots.
So, I mean, in that way, reallyit is, it is like economic
gardening, right?
You're, you're attempting tocreate fertile ground for, um,
(34:45):
positive change in communities.
And you're trying to generallybe, I think, inclusive of the
people that are already livingthere versus trying to land a
spaceship on a community tocause major change.
I think it's a more nuancedversion of economic growth.
So you're a trustee in thevillage of sleepy hollow.
(35:08):
You've done work and have astraw, which is a relatively
small community, um, Ossiningalso as a small village, um,
when you're working in thesemunicipalities that is closer, I
think, just because of scale towhat you would call community
(35:31):
development.
So how do you try to organizethem and say, Hey guys, we have
to think about our communities alittle bit differently than we
did before.
Any, any thoughts come to mind?
Cause you, you work with you'vedone.
I mean, even if you talk justabout garner ArtCenter and
Rocklin, it is a, a, um, a,probably a story unto itself
(35:57):
about how to take an old textilemill and try to say, how can we
energize it today?
So examples from the communitiesyou've worked in about how
you've tried to bring communitydevelopment and energy to them.
So, so like how an ecosystememerges.
It takes a really long time, andthis is why I think state
(36:21):
agencies, uh, or even, you know,regional aid agencies, um, are
focused on, I guess what I calllike catastrophic change, like
big sort of more immediatechange versus like incremental
evolutionary change because one,you know, we generally don't
have the patience or theperseverance to ceasing, see
(36:43):
something through over like amulti-decade period.
Um, and two there's, I call itlike catastrophic amounts of
money available to do bigthings.
So oftentimes the way to doeconomic development or that
we've done it traditionally islike that spaceship lands in a
(37:04):
community and it creates majorchange.
Right?
I mean, think like white Plainsor what's happening in your
shell or Yonkers or, um, even tosome extent Peekskill, but we're
going to see more of that overthe coming.
I don't know, probably fiveyears.
Um, so, you know, it's when you,when you do community
(37:26):
development or community scaledevelopment and you're causing,
um, thoughtful, incrementalevolutionary change, uh, you
have to have really goodrelationships with people that
hold power.
Um, you have to understand thecommunity and where power lies
in the, in the community, right.
(37:49):
Who has a voice who doesn't, whoshould have a voice that
doesn't, and then you have tocome up with plans that
everybody can sort of get onboard with.
Right.
Um, and visions.
Right.
So I was the, I was asked to bethe chairman of, uh, the
comprehensive plan it's calledHaverstraw at a long or have a
straw forward.
(38:10):
Um, and I mean, that was anamazing, like, amazing process,
right?
Lots of public outreach sessions, um, embedding in the community
during events, uh, trying toreach the different players in
the community, like multipletimes throughout the process.
(38:31):
Um, and, and make sure thatthey, that they understand like
why a vision is useful, right.
Because it's, it's kind ofshowing you like, this is where
you could go and all thedecisions that you make between
now and there.
I mean, you're never going toexactly get there.
Right.
But you should orient it whileyou're sort of decision-making,
(38:52):
um, to at least put you movingin that, in that direction.
So, you know, whether it'shaving a star garner now, sleepy
hollow, um, it's it'srelationships, I think that are
the most that are the mostimportant.
Um, and figuring also out,figuring out how to, um, elevate
(39:15):
people that are already in thecommunity that have the ability
to make positive change, right.
Because no, one's going to do itthemselves.
You need to find effectively asmall army of people that are
like-minded that share thatvision right.
To advance change.
And it might seem like at firstit's something extremely small,
(39:37):
like, you know, building birdhouses and hanging them from
street trees right.
Or putting in a communitygarden.
Right.
But then ultimately you pullmore people in because they see
positive change.
I think people are attracted topositive change.
Um, and they're on board withmaking, with making more.
(39:59):
Um, and then obviously I didn'ttalk anything about like
regulatory or zoning, but all ofthat stuff, the rules that you
place on the community, um, haveto evolve with the community's
perspective and the community'sdesires.
So wait, pause a second there,because one of the things that
I've always struggled with isthat in the comprehensive plan
(40:19):
process for a community, andthey're trying to think, what do
they want to be?
So they, they you've been, let'ssay you, well, you have been
successful in getting people tocoalesce around a vision.
My struggle has always been fiveyears later.
(40:41):
How do we keep people onmission?
This is where we're going.
People move in, move out, peoplehave different thoughts.
Is that, has that been an issuefor you in thinking about how to
get communities to evolve?
Oh, I'll tell you in 10 years.
No, no.
I, I think, I think the problemis, is that people think about
(41:04):
these processes as like you dothis once every, you know, name
a period of time.
I hadn't had a comp plan done insomething like 25 years, I
think, maybe longer actually.
Um, and hasn't changed it'szoning, right?
So the zoning is almost like theoriginal code, which is just
(41:25):
crazy.
Um, and we did have a wholeconversation about where that
code came from.
It didn't come from local, itdidn't come from us.
It was given to us.
Uh, so, so I think thatengagement and the conversations
(41:46):
about implementing the visionhas to be always public and
happening all the time.
And so figuring out the rightapplication or mode of, of
creating that engagement, Ithink is really important.
So, you know, in Haverstraw, forexample, and this predates the
(42:07):
comp plan, but it's interestingbecause it's information that
sort of fed into the comp plan,um, a number of volunteers and I
, uh, started a food crawl,right.
And it was almost like afunction that it chamber should
do.
Um, but in this case it was likea local arts organization that
was, you know, pushing this foodcrawl.
(42:28):
And it was just sort of like,it's really interesting.
It was to sort of, um,celebrate, you know, people
walking up and down this mainstreet, people of all different
kinds from all differentbackgrounds, uh, like sort of
rubbing elbows and interactingin a place where there is in
north Rockland.
Right.
There's traditionally a lot of,um, fear and racial animosity.
(42:54):
Wait, wait, hold on, hold on onesec.
So crawl.
So I spent a year in England, soI know what a pub crawl is,
where you go from one pub toanother, to another to another.
So are you saying that if I'mjust imagining what, what a food
crawl is, different ethnicitiesstopping in different places
(43:17):
with a group of people and thenintroducing different cultures
along the way?
I don't know.
Yeah.
It's really wild.
I mean, have, is trust Godsomething like, I mean, we would
get 25 restaurant there's morethan 25 restaurants in less than
something like a four blockradius in Haverstraw.
It's really insane.
So we would get around 25restaurants joining this event
(43:40):
and, you know, the doors wouldbe open and people would stop in
and basically get something liketop us.
I mean, you could sit down andget a full, full service meal,
but, but we would encouragepeople to hit as many of them as
they could.
Um, yeah, I mean, and there'severything it's like Caribbean,
Puerto Rican, Dominican, uh,Ecuadorian, Mexican, um, Asian
(44:05):
there's, there's an amazing likeFrench fusion restaurant in
downtown Havis DRA.
So, you know, there were, therewas, and there is like this
really amazing opportunity toget people from different
cultures to interact over food,which is a lot easier to get
them to do than anything else.
(44:25):
And then we added beer to, weshut up, we shut a street down
and had a, you know, a gardenand invited six, like local or
regional breweries to, to selltheir beer in the street.
And it was, it's just anamazing, you know, there's live
music, it's an incredible event.
Um, and it came out of likeFacebook conversations on a
(44:47):
community page where peoplesaying like, I'm afraid to go to
have a straw.
And it's like, well, do youever?
And they're like, well, no,because I'm afraid.
And I'm like, okay, so we'llhost this safe space event for
you so that you feel safe andcomfortable and you can
experience like all of thisreally amazing food and realized
(45:08):
that the people that are eitherrunning these businesses or live
in the community, aren't goingto bite you, you know, when you
show up to, to try this food.
Um, and they did.
And the, the foot traffic tothese restaurants after we
started this, like actuallyincreased.
And now there are, there arepeople that never, that, like,
(45:30):
they'd never considered going tohave us draw downtown Haverstraw
for, for lunch or dinner.
And now they're sort of likeregulars in, you know, like a
central American restaurant.
It's really absolutelyincredible.
Um, what it does is it just likeshifts the perception or the
window of what people perceiveto the acceptable, you know,
(45:51):
this, and th these, these issuesare kind of like across the
board, what do people perceiveto be acceptable right.
In their community?
Like what's normal, right?
And if you can kind of nudgethem out of that safe space, uh,
and into some new perception, Imean, that's what community
(46:13):
development is.
Like, you were radicallychanging how people think about
themselves or their community,um, to create opportunity.
So, so I had wondered what yourthoughts were going to be about
the future of main street, butit sounds like you've, you've
given me clues here that there,there, it was, things are always
(46:36):
meant to evolve and will therebe, you know, people always fear
Amazon will take over the worldin terms of everything will be
delivered, but will there alwaysbe this need for gathering
places and how do we sell them?
And what does, what do we needto add to energize them as well?
(46:59):
So as people become wealthier,get educated, travel experience,
different things, they demandmore, right.
They want meaningfulrelationships, meaningful
(47:21):
experiences.
They want to buy meaningfulproducts.
Right.
Uh, and they want to, generally,when this happens, they want to
support their local economy andbuy things produced locally,
right?
Like we, that's sort of, that'sa big macro trend and all the
consumer commodity products thatwe get, which you might, you
(47:44):
used to get them at circuit cityor wherever tops.
You remember tops.
Uh, all of those things aremeaningless.
They, they don't bring meaningthey don't bring happiness.
They're completely meaningless.
Um, yeah, you could watch yourfavorite show, but that's
meaningless.
(48:05):
I think the pandemic is showingpeople like how meaningless a
lot of their life was.
And this is actually one reasonwhy a ton of people got into
gardening.
I don't know if you've noticedthis, like, people are like out
in the dirt, cause they'rerealizing like, oh my God, how
(48:25):
was I living like disconnected?
Right.
And then you're forced intoactual, like forced to
disconnection.
So you realize how disconnectedyou were before, right.
When you actually have to stepback and, you know, assess where
you're at.
Um, lack of connection to natureand the community.
(48:47):
Um, and we, you know, we kind ofsaw this, we saw this happen in
the last recession, right?
When everybody gets shaken away,like, Hey, the system's not
working.
Some of it's gonna go away.
Wow.
That's scary.
Right.
People become resourceful.
They care more about theircommunity and positive change
(49:08):
emerges it's as the economybecomes more static and
entrenched.
Right.
And is growing on the results ofthat shakeup, that's the most
dangerous period because that'swhen there's like a glomeration
and larger and larger companieseating everything up.
(49:28):
But then you get to the pointwhere it explodes again and
everything reshaped.
So I would argue like thissystem that we have, where we go
for very long periods of timewithout economic disturbance,
right.
And then there's the spectacularblow up.
(49:49):
Um, that's not helpful for mainstreet at all.
And you know, that might be goodfor very large national and
international corporations,right.
If they can weather that extremeblowup and usually the way that
they, whether it is the federalgovernment comes in and helps
them out.
Um, they're not there for ourmain streets.
(50:10):
So I would argue that moreinnovation and more change and
more disruption occurring moreregularly versus just
entrenching, um, powerfulinterests, right?
Over longer periods of time.
I think that's probably a bettersystem for us, but mean tell
that to DC.
There's, there's no way thatthey're going to embrace that
(50:32):
kind of a strategy.
But, but, but Jared, it soundsas if that through the pandemic,
you, you almost had this, you,I'm not going to say you got
what you want, but that in yourtheory here of this ultimate
disruption, you shut the entireeconomy down.
(50:52):
People have an opportunity tothink what's important to them.
Therefore, our main streets isthere this incredible
opportunity for them to, okay.
Yeah.
I mean, only if you think aboutit, right.
There were ways for all of us tosupport the places that we loved
throughout this thing to keepthem alive.
(51:16):
Right.
And the places that we lovesurvived in general.
Right.
In general, I mean, I couldthink anecdotally about like my
community or a bunch ofcommunities that I frequent,
it's the places that we lovethat survived.
And it's the places that we kindof didn't, or that weren't
really managed.
(51:37):
Well, it was like, uh, you know,that could be better that
didn't.
And so you, we we've always seenthis in a place like New York,
right?
The restaurants are changing allthe time.
It's because New York has apopulation of people that goes
(51:57):
out to eat all the time and theyknow what a good restaurant is
and they've got options.
So if you're not really good andpeople don't love you, you're
not surviving in New York.
And we kind of have, I mean,that's what the pandemic did for
most main streets.
Um, and certainly malls.
(52:18):
I mean, I don't know anyone thatloves them all, uh, you know, or
a big box store, you know, maybesure you could find some people
that love some big box store.
Um, but that's what it is.
And we keep the places that we,that we love.
And, and if there's, if you havea built environment that reduces
(52:42):
the barriers to starting abusiness, well, that's more
chances that you will eventuallyget a business that you love
that will stick around for sometime.
Um, and in my opinion, it's notthe large, floorplate retail,
large square footage, retailwith no demising walls, those
things, aren't, those thingsaren't supportive of startup
(53:05):
businesses or small businesses.
It's the 12 foot widestorefront, right.
Or the, you know, less than 20foot wide storefront on a 25
foot lot on a main street.
Those are the things that spurinnovation because the barrier
to entry is generally, you know,to rent, to accessing the space,
(53:29):
to, to renovating it becauseit's generally small, you don't
have to renovate a 20,000 squarefoot space, um, et cetera.
So, so is, okay.
Some people are fans of whathappened to, let's say a beacon
or a Rhinebeck because they seeit as you know, it, it, it has
(53:53):
evil.
Some people look at it and say,it's been gentrified.
It's not the way it used to be.
Uh, we can't afford to livehere.
Where do you come at?
And in that argument over, youknow, we have to protect and we
yet we have to evolve.
Yeah.
So it's too, we have it's toospiky.
(54:15):
Why are, why do some communitiessucceed and others don't right.
Why do some well succeed?
I guess that's the, you know, isit success if you gentrify and
displace people?
You know, I don't, I don't knowto the people that are being
displaced.
Like if they're actually beingdisplaced, no, that's not
(54:35):
successful, but if they can geta job downtown right.
And do better than they weredoing before, like net net, even
if rents increased, there's thepossibility that they become a
manager of a restaurant thatdoes really well.
I've seen it happen inHaverstraw.
Right.
Right.
You know, Latino, uh,first-generation where immigrant
(55:01):
young people getting a job as abus boy, it's their first job.
They're in high school.
And eventually they become ageneral manager and that
wouldn't have happened with somelevel of what we call
gentrification.
It wouldn't happen.
And sometimes I think like, youknow, th th there's there's the
conversation aroundgentrification is like, just not
(55:23):
nuanced enough, right.
Up to a certain point, it'sintegration up to a certain
point, right.
Once it tips the balance andgoes over into all wealthy white
people, it's no longerintegration.
Right.
It's, you know, you'reexcluding, right.
But we do exclusionary practicesall the time.
We've got plenty of wealthycommunities that are white only
(55:45):
today.
So if we have the opportunity tointegrate communities and bring
wealth and opportunity to peoplethat didn't have it, I say we do
it, but we have to figure outhow to accommodate people of all
needs as that evolution occurs.
And that's what affordablehousing can do.
(56:09):
Um, like regulated affordablehousing, where, you know, it is
permanently affordable, um,cooperatives, you know, that
might be regulated.
I think all of options are sortof on the table to keep a place
accessible, but this alwayscomes back to why are there
(56:29):
superstar places and why arethere not like, why is it so
spiky?
Why, why aren't all boats risingat the same time?
And I personally would arguethat it's a, it's a racial
thing.
Um, it's a racial issue.
And I would, I would, I wouldrecommend, um, reading.
(56:51):
I believe he's at the universityof Minnesota.
It's Myron Orfield.
I don't know if you know who heis.
Um, he was really influential inthe Mount Laurel decision in New
Jersey and the Mount Laureldecision is effectively, no
community should quote, bear theburden.
And these are like, these arejudges from the states Supreme
(57:13):
court in New Jersey, nocommunity should quote, bear the
burden of providing all theaffordable housing for an entire
region.
In effect.
What they're saying is you can'twarehouse people of color in a
single community so that all theother communities can, you know,
remain 80% plus sort of likewhite and wealthy.
(57:36):
Um, it's getting at this issueof spiking this, like, it
doesn't have to be a zero sumgame here, right?
Like we've seen integratedcommunities be successful.
I would argue beacon is one ofthose.
It's still, it's still, uh, likea diverse place with people from
(57:57):
all different kinds of economicbackgrounds.
Can it go too far and tip over?
Yeah.
But that's their job to figurethat out.
Wow.
Dr.
Jared describe, uh, thedemographics of Haverstraw,
which, you know, so well, and Iknow fairly, right, right.
So, you know, have a straw hat,a straw is a, an immigrant
(58:20):
community, mostly Latino.
Um, you know, it's historicallyan immigrant community from, you
know, Irish to, uh, formerslaves, you know, escaping the
south to come and work in thenorth to, um, you know, Puerto
Rican starting in the 1920s, youknow, evolving into Dominican,
(58:43):
starting in the late sixties.
And now it's evolving intocentral Americans and that trend
started around 2000.
Um, and so, you know, even inthat community, it's fairly
spiky, right.
Is it's, uh, it's segregated.
I mean, it's a segregatedcommunity.
Like sleepy hollow is likeOssining is where you've got,
(59:07):
you know, outer suburban areasthat are ringing a downtown,
which is predominantly people ofcolor, um, and low low-income
people.
Uh, and then there have beensort of luxury developments
built, but they're almost builtlike a gated community with
little integration, physicalintegration into the downtown,
which is changing now finally, Imean, there's, there's
(59:30):
development occurring.
That's like better linkingpedestrian access, uh, and
integrating developments likeright into the downtown area.
But I, you know, I personallywould argue these, even these
spiky developments where it'shigh luxury, but it's on the
edge.
Right.
(59:51):
I would prefer, you know, mixed,uh, affordable plus luxury right
in the downtown, like right inthe center.
Um, because we need to haveintegration and we need to be
attacking these segregationpatterns, not just on a regional
scale, like what New Jersey isdoing.
(01:00:11):
And I would argue New York needsto do the same thing.
I mean, Chappaqua, we're comingfor you.
Uh, you know, it has to be doneon a, on a community by
community basis.
All right.
So stop there for a second.
I have always enjoyed ourconversations.
(01:00:32):
I always learn something aboutit since we pay you an enormous
sum for being a guest on this.
Why don't we just end with, ifpeople enjoyed your perspective
and thoughts about communities,how do they find emerging urban
concepts?
(01:00:52):
Great.
So, you know, anyone can visitwww.emergentgroup.com.
Um, you know, Google me on theinternet, find me on LinkedIn,
Jared Rodriguez.
Um, you know, I'm happy, I'mhappy to chat with, with anybody
really.
It's sort of, you know, it's,it's really important for us to
(01:01:12):
have conversations about how thephysical world impacts us.
We don't do that enough.
Um, we like to live in a socialworld, right.
And be on Facebook and be havingpolitical debates, no like roads
and buildings and sidewalks andtrees and rivers, right.
These impact how we live ourlives for real, like in the real
(01:01:35):
world, it impacts your health in, in text, your longevity, it
impacts who your kids are goingto be around who your child
might marry.
Right.
Like, it's, this is reallyimportant, real life stuff.
And we should be havingconversations about how to make
it better.
I mean, we've only got like onego around and it doesn't really
(01:01:56):
last that long.
So why shouldn't it be as greatas it possibly can while we're
here?
I mean, really what are wewaiting for?
Right.
I think that's just the perfectway to end this discussion.
Um, Jared, thank you so much foryour time.
This is pattern and paradigm,um, and, uh, we will be back
(01:02:16):
with you next fall.
Thank
Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
You for tuning to patterns and paradigms the
pattern podcast.
For more information about thisepisode, visit our website
pattern for progress.org forwardslash podcast.
(01:02:54):
[inaudible].
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