 Great. Welcome to I guess what we call the penultimate panel of the conference and I'm really excited to be here with my fellow panelists who will introduce themselves in a moment. I'm Kate Asher, the Milstein Professor of Urban Development at Columbia, and we're going to focus on some of the kind of community development issues that relate to this particular moment in time. So before we get started digging into some questions, let me ask my fellow panelists to introduce themselves. Cecilia, do you want to start? Yeah, sure. Hi, everyone. My name is Cecilia Krishnare. I work for the Economic Development Corporation in New York City. We are an arm of the New York City government. Our mission is to create shared prosperity across the New York City five boroughs by creating good job and strengthening neighborhood. And then the Executive Vice President for Planning, which responsible for place-based strategic planning from vision to execution. So great to be here. Thank you, Kate. Great. Thanks, Cecilia. How about you, Ernst? Good morning. Ernst Valerie. I am an alumni of alumnus of the MSRAD program. I am the president and co-managing member of SAEVI. We're real estate developers and I kind of tell folks we're not one product or the other. We're community developers and we really believe in development without displacement. And so we, in our toolkit, we have affordable housing. We have market rate housing. We have, you know, small retail. We have large retail. So we kind of do it all in partnership with community. Great. And last but not least, Cecilia. Hi, everyone. My name is Cecilia King. I am also an alum of the MSRAD program, class of 2015. I am also currently an adjunct teaching in the program as well. So life has come a little bit of full circle for me. I am the founder of a real estate development and consulting firm called Kipling Development. I primarily do a lot of work in Detroit and New Jersey. I spent the last six years of my career doing development in Detroit specifically around residential, whether it be affordable mixed income or market rate. And right now my focus as a developer is specifically on home ownership and the intersection of affordable home ownership with the rest of the market in Detroit. So I definitely want to talk more about that in today's panel. Great. Well, we have, we should have a nice spread here between my development work in upstate New York, Detroit, Ernst's in many places, including Baltimore and Cecilia who really covers New York City for us. So let's, let's dig right in. I want to talk a little bit about this particular moment in time and everything that's happened this year. Not just the pandemic, not just to the Black Lives Matter movement but really all these big changes combined. There's been so much of a focus on equity and inequitable outcomes in, in, in many aspects of life. And I think it's an interesting time to ask people like you who work at the forefront of community development. To what extent are these disparities in wealth and access that the last year has highlighted in so many ways. To what extent do you feel that they are actually reflected in or reflective of the structure of the real estate industry itself, which I know is a very big question. What do you think is something that, you know, as a sort of year of self reflection is important to at least talk about and think about with a wider audience. So, Cecily, maybe you want to start. Yeah, I'd be happy to I think there's two, two things that your question brings to mind for me. I think the last year, when we talk about just equity and ownership I think it's really laid bare the disparity between rentership and the vulnerability that people were the vulnerable place that people were left in. Over the course of the past year, frankly through no fault of their own, and contrast that with some of the just asset appreciation that homeowner saw. I'm in northern New Jersey, and we saw a huge influx of people mostly from Brooklyn, bidding up home values to a point that, you know, even the home that my husband and I own here, appreciate or probably 25%. But if we were renters we would have been left in a situation where maybe our landlord one, I think we saw what happened with a lot of renters that's in it's frankly still playing out when it comes to just stays on it on evictions. One of the moratoriums that expired or been confusing across the country and I think that that that disparity there I think we definitely saw play out in the news I think the second piece for me and this is more broad. When we talk about equity, we're often talking about dollars and wealth creation but one of the things. And one of the reasons why I found it my firm is that I think equity is not just about dollars it's also about representation. And I think the way that we approach projects is different than when I when I look like the people that I'm developing for really interesting. Interesting thoughts there Ernst, what, what is your take on what this last year should make us think about and reflect on as we kind of help, you know, certainly students at Columbia and elsewhere move into the real estate industry. Yeah, and, you know, I think a lot of students going to Columbia are going to different real estate programs especially students of color and women and immigrants. They, they get a different kind of welcome into the real estate industry on the other side once they've graduated and I feel that they haven't had the access to become entrepreneurs because no one's investing in them so real estate is very traditional because it's tied to the traditional financial or financing systems and so banks and, you know, the big financial powerhouses and the equity folks out there. They are not investing in women, they are not investing in black and brown people and they're not investing in immigrants and that's just a fact. I feel that, you know, as a person of color you can get all the degrees you want at the end of the day. You know, you really have to just fight for a spot as like a middle manager you're not going to be the top of the company. So I think one of the things, you know, at Columbia that's been highlighted because a lot of black and brown people are like well should I go to Columbia because am I going to have access and opportunity on the other side to be an entrepreneur. And I think entrepreneurship is the only way we counterbalance this traditional system that says we don't want to give you access and so, you know, there are so many talented women so many talented people of color. Should we really be asking for access in a system that doesn't want us or should we be, you know, carving a path a different path, because I think to change everything that's been highlighted with coven with the me to movement. Black Lives Matters movement is how do we finance another platform another direction for very talented people should they really be seeking opportunities with people that don't want them that don't value them. And who plan to use them use their gender use their color to say we've got this but not really give them opportunity into. I think that's the direction that we need to head. We need to disrupt the system and real estate development is community development like development doesn't happen in a vacuum anymore you don't go in the middle of the forest and my or the, you know, deal with a farmer and do a subdivision. Development is happening in communities people already exists there. And so if you can't tread those waters I think you're on the wrong side of history when it comes to the path that our careers and like our field is heading into. We've got to change the outlook how people see developers people see developers as very evil people. And that's because they're not from the community. They just drop in, and they've got capital and they've got access and their developers. They're more value of value system to development. And you know the people who are going to lead that are women, people of color and immigrants because that's where development is happening. Right. I want to come back to a couple of points you made because I do want to come back and think about the role of education in real estate and how we attract people into it but I want to pivot for a second and ask. Cecilia something something different as we think about what's happened this year we think about communities. And we think about how communities have struggled to support their members who faced all kinds of challenges with unemployment health issues. Seeing the disparity between wealthier and poorer communities play out in a, in a very dramatic way, I sort of wonder what kind of thinking you or the city are doing about how to make these neighborhoods in these communities stronger, more resilient and I don't mean from flooding and climate change I made in a social sense, the sorts of bonds and support that we've seen is was needed this year to really just get us through, you know, the, as the queen would say, and it's this really confluence of terrible events. So I just wonder what your thoughts are on on, you know, how we might make more complete some of these neighborhoods that that are not. And just also picking back on what Cecilia and Ernst were saying, I think like the recovery cannot be a return to normal. I think the last year has really shown that there are kind of like fundamental infrastructure issues to how people do these neighborhoods and you're totally right that like, we've seen that there's been a really very acute geographical impact of both like the health issues and the economic issues and so it is not like there's definitely a difference on how like this has played out for people and communities. I think what it has really shown is that there's a number of what we what I would call like systems of infrastructure that really make a community resilience both financially or from a health perspective that we've seen perform or not perform I mean, one kind of like really important example is broadband, for example, and how you could be in New York City and be a neighborhood that doesn't have access to like good quality Wi Fi which completely impacted your ability to access any kind of services even like testing and health services or for your kids to be able to do remote schooling. So, like that is one aspect for example that the city is deeply looking at saying like it is not enough that we have like 80% of New Yorkers that have access to broadband because for the 20% that don't. There's really a complete breakdown in a lot of like city services and infrastructure that happens to them during a moment of crisis. It also looked like the open restaurant was a huge opportunity in New York City for businesses to be able to pivot and continue to have some level of income and reinvent themselves at a time where it was not possible to eat indoors. But we saw how difficult it was for some communities or some entrepreneurs to be able to adapt, you know, or just put out front the amount of money that was necessary for them to be compliant with the regulations. So one of the things we did for example is partner with the AI in New York City so we set up like a bunch of pro bono volunteer designers that gave their time and their expertise to local restaurants throughout the entire city to tell them this is how you should read the regulations on how to do open restaurants so they could avoid fines and so they could be open really quickly. I think we're beginning to see how there has to be more partnership between the non for profit sector, the private sector and the city to really get at like very targeted set of policies and technical support that an infrastructure management that need to be done in a number of neighborhoods throughout the city so everyone has an opportunity to actually be able to withstand and become more resilient to systemic shocks which is seems to be how the 21st century is going to play out between climate pandemics, like, you know, cycles of economic downturns like managing crisis and be able to be resilient economically and from a health perspective are just really important features of neighborhood success moving forward and something we're really beginning to look into. And I guess while we're on that topic one of the questions I have is, I know there's a theory and infrastructure bill brewing and Congress, you know who knows if it will make it out. But I'm wondering from a city perspective in any of the cities where you guys work but but really starting with New York. How, how is any of this new thinking about infrastructure about physical infrastructure about the way streets are used about the importance of parks about transit and the fact that you know, literally the New York City subway system for example was never fully built out and there are communities that are nowhere near it that find it very hard to get, you know, access to to work. Is there any thinking that some of the interventions or some of the innovations that were explored during this period might have lasting lessons and actually kind of change the way we look at investment in those areas and how we utilize that kind of real estate. Subway is a perfect example it's been fascinating to see has like ridership has completely plummeted who is still using the system. And so you really see these neighborhoods that have really tragically suffered from cove at the same time when you have high concentration of essential workers. And these are the stations and the lines where you see like really large ridership and then the lines and the neighborhoods that used to feed a lot of like the Manhattan to, you know, other boroughs kind of commute to me town and Laura Manhattan, you've seen a steep decline and so that has to make you rethink about like where does investment in infrastructure and in transportation infrastructure as you said in some neighborhoods where like New Yorkers have to commute an extremely long amount of time are actually invested in. We're looking a lot at what the city can control as we don't control the MTA but one now like we looked at like select services or investment in in biking or any kind of transportation infrastructure. The lens of like who actually traveled a lot during the last year and who was able to actually function fairly well in the neighborhood that they were in and from home I think it's like a totally new type of data on on like where investment is actually the most interesting data point Cecilia just thinking about that that concentration of essential workers and where investment in things like transit actually happened I think the other thing that brings to mind for me is parks and access to open space because I think we also saw a varied experience in terms of just an outlet for people for kids to play for people to have some type of social interaction in what was felt to be a safe space based on the put their access to a place like to green space or parks or public space or whatever. It was for someone and what what that investment then looks like because I think oftentimes I think more well to do communities have private open spaces and public and so that investment in public spaces in neighborhoods where it really really matters. What does that look like going forward I think the other this other thing that I've seen for me in places like Detroit with restaurants not being able to operate in the building actually spilling out onto the street and taking up part of the street. Granted it's coupled with, you know, decreased transportation there's not as much people not as many people moving around in the same way, but it was a really effective way to have more of this inside outside more social environment it's more social interaction. I don't know that it's a permanent change because when people start moving around and cars come back and you know like that that frequency and density of travel picks up again I don't I think there's a middle ground there where we saw that maybe we don't need as much as we've been using, maybe we can, you know, decrease what streets look like and what road use looks like or change how it looks. I don't think it's going to stay exactly the way it is I do think we saw some really cool test. We're forced to test in very interesting ways. Fascinating. You know, Detroit is an interesting case because I've been fascinated by the transportation infrastructure of Detroit or lack thereof. And I just, I just, you know, Leslie if you want to just expand on that a little bit more and think about the tie between development and transportation infrastructure. So I feel like because so much of Detroit, you know, sort of moved out into the suburbs because there was so little investment in the center city. What attempts were made to to really invest in transit. Interestingly, some of the public ones went nowhere now there's some private investment and I'm just wondering maybe a little bit cynically. You know, how we think about transit how we might think about transit oriented development in communities that really, you know, require require support to to continue moving forward. It's interesting because I think some of the public and private transit investment investment in transit in Detroit has been very high dollar and not a very extensive impact in terms of distance in terms of ridership. Well, I've actually so I spent a lot of time in Richmond, Virginia, and they have this really interesting just bus rapid transit down their main corridor that they've put in in the last five years. That's really impactful. And so this idea of like permanent infrastructure that's very high ticket and completely transfer you have to putting in rails is very different than putting in some bus stops and running a bus and putting it down and running a bus. And so thinking more strategically about how we what transit and that's what actually means. There's some very good case studies in very recent years that could be applied in places like Detroit, in my opinion. Yeah, a very, very good example, Ernst, I don't know you're smiling. I work in Richmond, Virginia, and I've been to Detroit. And, you know, it's whose transit is it. And what is it being used for. So like, you know, my observation in Detroit is that, you know, there's two billionaires downtown that have like created a little bubble for themselves and like they fill their investment gaps with their each other's foundations, and they built a little thing just for them. And it's on purpose. They want to keep all the undesirables in their minds away from that and that's why their transportation downtown does not connect to the people. And it's an extremely very difficult place to do business, because everything is inside of trading in Detroit, in my opinion. And then you go to Virginia, Richmond, Virginia and you've got great leadership with Tony there. And, you know, he's really about all people. Right. It's like how do I connect my entire city and all of my people will where one Richmond, and it's it's it's sort of like the, you know, the tension between north and south like we we always get this idea that, you know, we're so liberal in the north, and they're so, you know, something different in the south right there they're racist at this or that. And we always find examples of people coming together and actually wanting to be together in the south, and actually knowing and learning you know, deal with each other. And then in the north we say all the right things. But you know, through our zoning through our transportation. We're really disinvesting in people and we're still sort of like perpetrating this idea of redlining we just do it in such clever ways now. You know, it's, it's, it's, you know, racism and sexism and neo xenophobia has like this really elevated language and so you think wow we're really so advanced in the north and it's simply not the case. I'm sure you mentioned mentioned redlining and one of the things I thought I wanted to touch on with you with you guys in this moment of, you know, concern over equitable outcomes is is the issue of, of gentrification and and displacement that it sometimes can bring and, you know, Detroit's an interesting question about what does it mean that there is this very spiky investment downtown. I, I sort of wonder when I look at places, you know, in New York and other cities that I travel to that have been have forms of transportation or other investment that have started, you know, moving them forward I'm particularly about the overground in London and other things or communities that were cut off that are starting to come back what's happening in places like that is, it is inevitably displacing people because property values are going up, in part because of this new access and it becomes a hip place to live and we know all the examples and I'm, I'm just interested in in your view Ernst and the others about how you move forward with investing in these communities without necessarily displacing many of the folks who've lived there a very long time. The way we work is going into those communities and, you know, creating opportunities for affordable housing workforce housing and jobs right entrepreneurship opportunities for the people who are there before you necessarily come in and you do some of the market rate and higher income stuff. And so if you're really in for that community you need that community where it is, and then you use density as a tool to add more people. You know, gentrification if you take out the displacement. It's actually a good thing it's amenities and resources coming into the community. But it's it's just, you know, the way it's been applied right it's like, we all have processes it's how the process is applied if it's applied in a very uneven and unfair way, where it targets a certain person, or it excludes a certain person. And that application is wrong and it's effectively un-American in my opinion. But if we apply it in an even way and we say okay does vulnerable people how do we take care of the most vulnerable people and so that's the way we we approach development how do we take care of the most vulnerable people in that community. So in a place like Baltimore there are vacancies and there's you know, you can do so much infill development and every zip code actually deserves investments. And what traditional markets do is, you know, you're never going to accuse a bank of being like creative and thinking about stocks right and so like, they just want to invest in what they know right and so like what they know is, you know, you know, the traditional sort of like upper middle class family it's not even the middle class family right the middle class country has been completely ignored. And you have places like Philadelphia like Baltimore, where, you know, a lower and middle kind of class family can get a $200 $300,000 beautiful home that's connected to transit and that zip code is valid. But our traditional financial systems won't invest in those places and so that's where I think we have to pivot and find different and more creative ways of financing and as developers we have to be the advocates for these communities. Right and we're the ones that speak to the banks we're the ones that convince them that, you know, people are worth it and, you know, ultimately, development has to change it can't, it can't stay the way it is there's so much tension, and that tension is just going to boil over. You know, you're going to have the continued pandemic of, you know, sexism and racism in this country and xenophobia like it's still happening now you know administration change hasn't, you know, abated the issue. So it's interesting and you know, if access to capital is an issue to be able to do the types of projects that you're talking about. How do we, how do we tackle that. I mean, we all understand why banks do what they do it's safe it's within their rules and you know it's the free market. It doesn't work, but but clearly your point is that it isn't working for a large part of the American population. So, you know, Cecily I don't know from your experience what what, you know you bring up the issue of wealth creation as well which is of course related in these neighborhoods but how do we, how do we address access to capital for the types of projects that Ernst is talking about because as a developer, you can, you can, you know, have your heart in the right place. But if you can't get financial support, you know, you're not going to be able to do a project so I'm just wondering what your experience has been and what your thoughts are. Yeah, no I definitely have some very fresh thoughts on this on this topic because I'm in the middle of a project right now in Detroit. It's a mixed income for sale condominium project and so 25% of the unit to reserve for households that make 80% am I am below. I have a lot of resources from the public side that could really complicate the capital stack that could help fund this project, but given the size of it. And I've worked on the public side, I would like to figure out how to do it without public investment because I think that's the more sustainable approach to this. For me has been strategic on the neighborhood and what the market rate comps are versus the 80% am my sale price and that helps to solve from a math perspective how the project can work. But I've really been, you know, having a lot of conversations with lenders both in the CDFI and the non CDFI community with equity investors etc, especially over the past year, and everyone's very very interested but to Ernst's point, in banks invest in what they know they have, you know, a regulatory environment that they've created there's, you know, certain underwriting criteria that they're using and yet super interesting but how do we marry it with the process that we have in place. So for me, a lot of it has has really been, I would say the CDFI community probably has the most flexibility when it comes to sources of dollars that are going into a fund to be used for mission driven investment. I think there's a specific type of investor or a specific type of equity partner that's interested in that is really trying to operationalize some of these changes that need to happen and I think in, in, in, from my perspective the last year has again exacerbated what people are seeing, and has made people interested in figuring out how to solve some of these more systemic problems. Go ahead Cecilia. I'm just like two things that we've tried to do at EDC to get to, to this issue. I think for us generally because in New York City we don't have a lot of land left. Each project has to be large, especially if it's an affordable housing project just to maximize the number of units that we can get there. And in each project is generally very complex because you're on the waterfront so you need to create like some open space or the site is highly contaminated. So it's really hard for kind of like emerging developers to be able to bid on projects like that because like you're not going to break ground for the next five to six years, and you need a capital stack that is like incredibly complex. So we've tried two things the first one is like an emerging developer loan fund. So for smaller projects it's actually we provide the capital upfront we provide the technical assistance and so we give them the time to be able to like we're the first in. And so we give like private financial institution like the, the trust that there is like the city is actually you know like investing in this company. The other thing we've done is just kind of like through the bidding process in the RFP process just really look at like forcing ventures between a large, you know experience developer that can build a capital stack and can stay on the site for like a few days before the like we actually close on it, and a more emerging developer that wouldn't have the ability to bid as a prime developer, but was going to gain immense kind of experience and know how, and the ability to be able to say that like they've built a capital stack on such a large project at the end of the day. There's just really looking at like, who do we give opportunities to, and that being a goal, in addition to actually building affordable housing but just like making the field more diverse which is better for the city at the end of the day because if it's more competitive we get also more for our money, and we'll have more chances to do great projects, but just making sure that these two goals are happening in parallel has been like just really important and I think we'll continue to be really important for the field. I wanted to go back to Kate because you had asked the question about displacement and I actually had a thought about that that what your comment just now Cecilia triggered. I think it's about how do you, I think you would ask how do we prevent displacement when investments happening I think Ernst gave a really insightful. I had a really insightful comment about it's not the investment that's the problem is displacement that's the problem. And for me, I think one thing that I've seen is the difference that ownership makes. So if you are an owner of property, and a place where investments is happening everyone wants to live somewhere that is desirable. The property value goes up you're, you're creating wealth for people but I think oftentimes and we're talking about housing, and we're talking about affordability we're talking about investment we're talking about rentership we're talking about affordable housing as a rental option and not necessarily keeping people in place through actual ownership I think affordable housing is great in that there you know there's 30 plus year, you know, deed restrictions or whatever but at the end of the day it's there's still a time stamp on there and if we look back 50 years we're talking about urban renewal we're talking about red line and we're talking so what what what does it look like in 50 years it's still not a permanent solution so I think there's the 100% agree with what you're saying about the scale of developer and emerging developer and and access to capital but then going back to that that conversation about displacement is what we're actually going to solve an issue it it's solving it now but is it going to solve it in the future or are we just kind of pushing off the the the finish line on that. I think like another I think it's it's hard to you want to talk about like wealth building and economic stability form or as a goal and like as like the actual like intergenerational outcome of our work right and what real estate development can offer is both the housing side and and and most Americans has wealth to their kids through you know like the equity that is in their home that is like how the American dream is being built financially. There's also I mean for us. There's also like, how do you get folks into like growth industry that are going to be part of the expansion of the economy and actually going to allow them to enter the middle class that then will give them the equity to be able to become a homeowner. I think it has to be both the housing stability in the community stability as well as ensuring that and for for us New York it's like it's tech. It's like cybersecurity is a huge, you know, growing industry, it's life science. So how do you make sure that native New Yorkers that are making their way through like high school and pro CUNY, you know, which is like the community college or like the system that really brings a lot of lower income New Yorkers into the middle class are actually poised to get these folks into these industries because these are the industries that actually going to create like the 21st century middle class in the city. I do a lot of work also around like internship, entrepreneurship, just making sure that these industries are taking a foothold in New York City. They're not not just thinking of New York City as like a global center but actually as a place that has residents, and have a responsibility for making sure that these residents enter this industry and so I think it's like also leaning in as to where the market is on jobs and making sure that that that is part of the equation. But that's a great point. I want to go back and pick up on something that that Ernst mentioned. I'm interested in the job sort of faucet for for folks coming into the real estate industry. How do we get people into the real estate industry as small developers to take advantage of the kinds of programs that Cecilia is talking about. I look and have looked over, you know, a decade at students coming through, you know, a master's program at Columbia. And, you know, there have not been all that many students of color that are that are American coming through. And I'm wondering, you know, graduate school and graduate education is a big investment. And it feels like an industry that might not have been part of their lives and something that they're exposed to they may have been exposed to tech or something else in their day to day lives. Ernst, I know you've spent a lot of time thinking about this but to what extent do we have an obligation as people in the industry to kind of encourage and identify that talent stream to fill up the spots that Cecilia and Cecilia are talking about and opportunities for people to tackle the complexity of building in a different way. I think I think the big investment has to be made one day graduated, and they have that piece of paper, you know, you have such talented people that will never be given that opportunity that for equity investment right it's like, you know, when when when, Frank when black people do development, it's really through hard money lenders, right, who take zero risk who take whatever small amount of money that they may have takes that as a down payment. And you know they, I've watched hard money lenders because you know before you can actually act, you have to kind of study what people do and I've watched hard money lenders, you know, say that down payment is based on how much money can they bring you to put you in a stress situation. Right, they'll take your financials and everything. And, you know, they never tell you, is it 20% they want down 30% 40% that number is fluid because, you know, if you've got 40%, you know, they're going to ask for 45%. They want to put you in a stress situation so that any kind of mistake you make, like they get to take those dollars, and they basically wipe you out they're like, you know, hedge funds right it's like the whole goal of that is to make you stress. You have all the, you know, risk that you're taking they're taking zero risk and that's why they call that those kind of dollars, loan to own, like it's it's a science right and that's usually what's available to, to people of color to in a particular black and so whenever they've gotten involved in real estate, they tend to lose and people think well that's because you're black, you know, you're my example you're black you can't do it you're not talented. And then you turn around and you have, you know, a white person get into real estate. You know they can. They commit Romney it right it's like hey, you know you're my son here's here's a big check go and do it and you know, I mean like if someone gives you a big check and you're starting out with equity, you're not going to fail like overall if you've got any kind of understanding of the real estate market, and you've got, you know, favorable capital, you're going to do well. And so, you know, we build our models on, you know, this person tends to fail this person tends to succeed but then we don't look at like the circumstances behind that and so, you know, one of the things we've done about it is we've created this fund the equal fund. And the point of that is, when you when you're so talented and you're a woman and you're of color and you're an immigrant, someone should hand you a check that says equity. Right, like, you don't have if you've got $50,000 $100,000 $200,000 in the bank in the bank, we're going to meet Romney you we're going to give you equity, and we want to see you do well. And, you know, the past few months that we've been doing this. The women incredible women that we've been working with the incredible people of color and immigrants that we've been working with. They're doing 20 to 25% better than their white male counterparts. And so, this is completely blowing out the theory that only white men do well in the middle of state and I think that's what we have to do we've got to show that there's incredible talent and all people, and we've got to finance them at a level playing field. Right, and so you have traditional banks that, you know, go into a particular zip code and suddenly their interest rates go up because they say risk, but then, over time, you realize is actually less risk in that community, it's just there. I know better than the long to own people. I mean it's still the same. You know, we want to get to our answer and our answer is money should go to elite white men. And so if that's the answer these traditional banking system and the traditional realist system wants to get to, they are going to do everything in their power to make sure that they sabotage everyone else. In a city like Baltimore that's less than 20% white male. It's probably 17 or 18% 1990, not 1990% plus of the investment in real estate went to a handful of elite white men. I mean, how does that happen. We find a legal way to do that because we call it underwriting we whatever we call it it's racist and sexist, and it's xenophobic and we've got to recognize that and pivot away from that. It's interesting. Cecily do you want to say something. Well, you go ahead first I wanted to comment on the pipeline question that you asked to go ahead. Okay, so for me, I think one of the things about real estate is I feel like it's almost the real estate developer developer is this enigma. I found when I'm having conversations with people about real estate. I've worked for the city of Detroit. And so when you're you're sitting in a community meeting and you're bringing a developer. What does that mean I mean you think people automatically clam up there. Well, there's just a there's a very visceral reaction to the word real estate to the word developer, and I'm always, I'm struck by it because in our everyday lives we interact with real estate, whether we think about it that way or not it's where you live. It's where you shop, it's where you go to school it's, it's so many different things. But it really is just referring to the built environment and so I don't think I think one of the most important things that we could do and we're thinking about the pipeline and exposure is demystify what real estate really is it can be so many things even on this panel like the background of planning or engineering or building it's, it's not just the developer the white man developer earns that you're talking about, but there's so many different layers and ways to be involved in real estate so I think understanding what it is. The components that make up it and the even you know public sector versus private sector versus nonprofit I think that will go a long way, even just introducing it and that's I think that's far before you go to grad school I think I made the decision to go to grad because I knew what real estate was not to find out about it. You know so I think that where we insert that in the pipeline conversation is really, really important. You know, it's it's very interesting and one of the things I've been thinking about is as you I teach a history of real estate development in York and one of the things I think about is those big kind of mega projects that have shaped certainly New York and have shaped other cities and and the fact that, and this is really, I'm sort of thinking about you Cecilia and representing the public sector. We undertake those these projects for whatever reason whether it's the World Trade Center or it was Rockefeller Center was actually private, or it's a Hudson Yards or something else because we're thinking big, and we think we want to transform an area. We want to do good we want to transform an area want to bring investment into it, but the project sometimes are of such complexity and such size that anybody who doesn't have deep pockets isn't well versed in how you negotiate with government can't really participate. I've seen this up close and personal from my time at EDC. And so the reason I'm responding to you with this Cecilia is in some ways, these sorts of projects and the tide of these sorts of developers that do them is what gets in the news. It's people associate with developers because they think oh the developer of whatever it is, whether it's Hudson Yards it's in the news or somebody else who's, you know, looking for some kind of break or trying to put up a very big tower over Grand Central or whatever. That's what they think about when they think about developers, and they do tend to be large projects they're extremely well financed and they're generally led by white men so it's not a crazy thing that people, you know, look at it this way because as a society, we aggregate these projects for maybe for good city planning reasons because we think we should think about the Western and Eastern rail yards together as one project as one neighborhood, but we end up in a mega project to whom only the largest can be granted admission. And so that's what happens in other cities. And I don't know, you know, from a planning perspective whether there are ways to think about these sorts of projects, transformational projects in places that that would provide essentially a wider entry way for some of these smaller developers that you've been talking about Ernst and you've been referring to Cecily, I don't know. I think it's a really important question. Look, I think like I to me it is less about the scale because there are some like issues, or some projects that need to happen at a large scale I mean New York City one enormous city in the middle of an enormous region and so there are some time like types of transformation that we're doing right now like a huge kind of climate change project in northern Manhattan, like, well you can only make a solution that like actually has a sense and a purpose at that scale, like at the scale of like 25 blocks that is just, you know how it needs to happen. And so the issue we've had in the profession is that we define success based on like physical transformation, and just like almost like the pace and the volume of physical transformation what's the next success on its head, like on its own. And I think like where we need to shift I mean like for me planning is a human science. It is about changing human outcomes. Like, we know how to build a building we've been able to build buildings for like centuries now so unless you're just a horrible planner and a horrible developer eventually something will come out of the ground and we Department of Building Regulation it will stand there for multiple generations, you know. But it's like how, how is the work actually doing two things one affecting the communities that exist today. Or potentially like the communities that will come to live in these new places that you're creating. I think you need to have like a very value driven human outcome driven sense of what success looks like that forces you to continuously judge whether or not you are going in the right direction or you are being like blinded by you know the physical transformation in front of you. And then I think like, and we're beginning to come into that realization, any time that we spend money or the private sector spend money has to be an opportunity to uplift people. It just has to so you have to find processes by which you're doing that and you have to hold yourself accountable in that way as well. So if you're if the city is, you know, spending a really large amount of money over a long period of time or just resources in planning and like physical transformation. It has to translate in a number of jobs that come to this local community have to translate number of job into like, like smaller firm that otherwise you know and this is there, there's chance to be able to like get into a large project and like be a bigger firm on the other side of that project like these have to be also like kind of key goals and you have to be measured against these outcomes as well. Although, you know, are what you're saying is as you look at big projects and I'm really talking about the real estate industry or because that's what this conference is about. Are you suggesting that as we think about these things. I mean, look, you know, banks have to do their community based lending or they can't continue to operate in certain, you know, areas. So should the public sector have a similar onus to encourage and support smaller real estate developers of color who don't have the resources and essentially carve out part of these projects for their participation. I'm asking a theoretical question. I'm not theoretical it's actually it's a real question right and so I think the way the public sector looks at it is trickle down. It's like, they're all Reaganomics right it's like, let's give it to the big developer because we don't have to work right and I don't want to say it in a very hostile way it's like, no, let's give it to the big developer and then let's let them bring along some other people and that's not going to work it's going to find out how to give big developers all sorts of tips and bonds and all sorts of stuff and then the small developer comes in for a little bit of subsidy, and we can't we apply the same method from the big developer. We the same application process the same everything, and we know that the small developer is not going to succeed, just based on those hurdles like they don't have the attorneys they don't have the accountants they don't have the back office to do that so like, in a sense it's like I always look at it is like how is it that my own taxpayer dollars is used to oppress me. Right and like that's essentially what happens and like communities actually don't want large scale huge 25 block redevelopments happening to them, because that's how they get lost that's how they get abused, and you know, I think a lot of government really that's the only way they actually think bigger than the developers right it's like, let's let's let's not do small scale, you know, development in the Bronx and let's involve people in the Bronx and let's make sure people from the Bronx are hired it's like have three employees are coming from Staten Island coming from like other places. I think our union system and I don't actually maybe I don't want to get into that but I think if we apply this it's go big or go home, we know who we're excluding, right, we've got to create a pathway for people to get in. And, you know, I had to kind of congratulate the CDF five someone brought up CDF eyes earlier. You know, we work with the investment fund we work with enterprise community loan fund to create pathways for folks and I'm not saying the big project is not because like we do big projects we do seven acre 13 acre projects, and I would have never been able to do five acre projects. If I didn't get the opportunity to renovate a few row houses in Philadelphia when I was 22 a couple row houses in Baltimore, it all starts somewhere and you can in one generation and one lifetime you can go from row houses to building towers and that's what we know I personally want to do and so how do you create the pathways and I think they that could be a parallel path that we follow. And we've got to look when when we're dealing with the small scale developers and I congratulate EDC because they've created this loan fund because that is a pathway. And, and then you really want to give that small developer that's proven they can take that loan fund and do something with it they can take equity and do something with it. Well what's next can they do a small mix use and so with our equal front and with you know what government is trying to do at you know the EDC level and other organizations like that in Baltimore and Philadelphia. So how do we create a pathway for people like developers shouldn't be. You know, people that don't care like you know they should be more like planners right they should care about the people that they're developing for, and if they don't, then we should find a way to ignore them, we should find a way to turn our backs to them because they're not like long term, they're just going to extract from our communities and, you know, unless you learn to, you know, understand that you have like a role, like, you know, the problem with development is that it's not like being a doctor where you take an example that says no harm, right it's not like being a lawyer where there's a bar that you pass and then there's a certain code and if you don't, you know, adhere to that code you can get disbarred. Right development is I've got money I've got contacts, I can be a developer and worse, my dad was a developer and like, and now I don't know what to do with my life. I'm a developer. Like, that's the worst thing we could do and like, and developers affect the world and our communities more than doctors more than lawyers because we build the built environment and like, and if, and if we do it wrong we we kind of marginalize people, right. And so developers should be women they should be people of color they should be everyone they should be all talented people it should be a meritocracy, and the way to do that is to create pathways and I, and I think that's what I think, you know, Cecily and I are trying to do by just being examples of people of color that you know happen to also be intelligent she's actually more intelligent than I am but like, being able to show that we can be successful developers and it's not through handout, when I told someone about the equal fund they're like, you know and I said, the second I said women and minorities they're like, is that some sort of grant program. So we've got to stop thinking of women and minorities as people we give handouts to, and we start thinking of people we make investments with and we make money, and you know, we got to leave greed off the table, essentially. Great, you know, I'm looking at these at these two female faces that are listening while you're talking or instant thinking that this is the right moment to wrap up this panel, having decided that we need to empower, you know, developers of color and women, but also, I love the idea that the word developer is something we need to look at, and, and try to make people understand that it isn't something pernicious that it's somebody who is shaping the built environment we don't consider people who construct bad people, but somehow the word has gotten caught up with a lot of associations that probably are not reflective of the complexity and the goals of the people who are doing it so on that rather philosophical note in search of a new word for developer I want to thank all you guys for being on the panel I think it's been a super interesting discussion. Thank you all to the audience who's been who's been listening to us. Many thanks.