Jun 05, 2020
Alfred Degrafinreid II is the associate vice chancellor for community relations for Vanderbilt University. A native Tennessean, Degrafinreid most recently served as the chief administrative officer for the Office of the Davidson County Criminal Court Clerk. Prior to serving the Metro Nashville government, he was counsel to U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper (TN-05) and coordinated community…
Jun 05, 2020
Kourtny Garrett serves as President & CEO of Downtown Dallas, Inc. and has been dedicated to the revitalization of Downtown Dallas in various roles since 2002. With a resume spanning 15 years in the development of livable communities, her passion for strong and kinetic city centers carries from Dallas to abroad. Her primary focus of…
Jun 05, 2020
Millennials, members of the diverse generation currently making up nearly a quarter of the U.S. population, are reshaping American society and, with it, commercial real estate. The generation is delaying many of the traditional life stages of young adulthood that were commonplace for baby boomers, including marriage in your twenties and the subsequent purchase of…
Jun 05, 2020
More than 9/11 or the Great Recession, COVID-19 and the associated economic downturn will shape Millennial preferences for years to come. Their intensive use of virtual media necessitated by the health risks may become more ingrained. The counter narrative is that the social distancing imposed by the pandemic will increase their desire for face-to-face communication…
Jun 05, 2020
Large cities of North America have followed a rollercoaster of growth and prosperity for more than 100 years. Decline of their urban cores after 1950 seemed to go hand-in-hand with the rise of the suburbs, but all that reversed—an inversion–with the new millennium. Now economic growth, rising rents and young adults were shifting toward the…
Jun 05, 2020
Cars, not people—that’s what defined downtown Phoenix and Houston at the close of the 20th century. In 1999, downtown Phoenix and Houston had nine and six parking spaces for every ten jobs respectively, according to a UCLA study. The footprint of these downtowns radically changed as Millennials– a generation that expresses a strong desire to…
Jun 05, 2020
In 2000, the leading edge of the Millennial generation was still in high school, the youngest in diapers. In 2020, Millennials comprise a big chunk of the American workforce, and are reflective of profoundly diversified suburban demographics. Over these twenty years, I’ve been researching and writing about why it’s high time to “retrofit” the suburbanized…
Jun 05, 2020
The Millennial Family 82% of babies born today are children of Millennials, but you probably wouldn’t think that if you lived in New York City. Millennials who forgo the suburbs and stay in the city are delaying having children, or having fewer children, due to mounting student debt and the general unaffordability of raising a…
Jun 05, 2020
Millennials have grown up. Many people retain a misperception around this demographic’s current age, but the reality is that they are now in their mid-to-late 30s and are settling into their adult lives. As they start to have children and pursue homeownership, millennials are now increasingly turning to suburban locales that offer more space and…
Jun 05, 2020
As the Millennial generation comes of age, their preferences, which tend to diverge from those of their baby boomer parents, present cities with an opportunity to fundamentally rethink urban and suburban life. In this edition of the Big Picture, we will explore how policymakers, developers, and more are placing bets and working feverishly to retain…
May 06, 2020
May 04, 2020
Lessons For Greenfield MegaprojectsMay 26, 2020 | 9am PDT | 12pm EDT Having seen COVID-19 disrupt the very functioning of cities worldwide, what would we do differently if we built a new city from scratch? While many of us are grappling with how to transform age-old systems to better serve citizens in the wake of…
