 Which was just totally shocking to me totally flabbergasting and I and it put in relief for me What we have built in not just in the Bay Area, but I think it's it's extreme here in that It's a world where people who are willing to work extremely hard like this guy Live in his car literally to make a living are actually forced because of the cost of housing and this that was why he was living in Mexico to And he's an American citizen to live so far away from their workplace and this was an extreme example But it got me thinking about the relationship between mobility and how people get to work and how people connect with economic opportunity So I put together this great panel and I will quickly run through their bios for you today And then we'll start talking and since this is a small group that we've got here I would like to keep the conversation lively and interactive So if somebody says something up here that you want to respond to put your hand up and we'll try to call on you I only ask that you not filibuster. So you got something to say say it make a point But you know, let's let's keep things moving. All right, so I'll start here with Julie. So Julie Line is that is that how we say? Like lean on me, okay, sorry So you I actually know Julie I should know how to say her last name but she's co-founder of a venture fund called the Urban Innovation Fund and She also previously founded an urban ventures accelerator program called tumble Both of those programs invest in companies that are trying to solve challenges associated with the future of cities And in particular focused on challenges related to equity sitting next to her. We've got Cynthia Wong Who's the executive director of Bay Area LISC? Bay Area LISC works towards Driving affordable housing and economic development in the Bay Area region Cynthia used to be a VP at Morgan Stanley where she created the Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing and helped launch that Prior to that she worked at Bridge Band Group And she's had this great history. I think in a lot of different areas around the impact space Sitting next to her is Calvin Gladney Calvin is the president and CEO of smart growth America Prior to being at smart growth America where he's really working on Equitable and sustainable communities all over the country. He was actually the managing partner of mosaic urban partners Which is a real estate advisory services and development company Calvin has worked in 25 different cities around the country over the last 10 Years working on these kinds of issues And then sitting all the way at the end is Michael Weinberg Who's the president of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute? Which is the leading think tank focused on the most critical issues here in the Bay Area? He manages a team of professional researchers, and I encourage you to go to their website and take a look at some of their research pretty amazing So with that let's kick off the discussion Calvin. I thought maybe you could set the scene With sort of framing what equity means to you in the context of mobility And you know what types of equity is is meaningful when we're talking about mobility and how people get around Okay Well, maybe I'll start with a story. How many people here have been to Brooklyn? Okay, good. How many people here have been to Coney Island? So I'm gonna be the only person you've ever met who actually grew up in Coney Island So I like to tell people don't let the pocket square fool you I grew up in public housing on welfare food stamps in Coney Island less than lucky since But if you know anything about Coney Island and you think about the context of mobility and equity So I got an internship in Manhattan and Coney Island Just if you're looking at the map is the most southern part of Brooklyn all the trains in there But I would have to get up at 4 a.m. To get to work in Manhattan at 9 a Because if you live in Coney Island either you're gonna walk depending on where you live in Coney Island You'd have to walk 15 to 20 blocks to get to the train station or get on a bus or get what people call A dollar cab to then get on the train for at least 60-minute train ride to get to Manhattan and independent where you had to go change trains And so for me growing up it always was clear to me that when it came to access the jobs Transportation option and the fact that Coney Island, which is essentially 75 percent African-American and Latino and Probably 80 percent low income And most folks probably less than 50 percent have more than a degree past high school There's a real challenge when you look at certain neighborhoods and certain racial groups and ethnicities When it comes to mobility and it comes to equity So one of the things I like to say is you can't talk about mobility And you can't talk about equity without being specific about race because the solution set For how you want to deal with these problems really need to be defined by the particular groups and depending on what type of problem You're trying to solve the different populations and groups need different solutions. So for me just personally growing up I saw all this stuff So those are the type of things I think about. Sorry. I'm about to cough In terms of types of equity though I did want to break it down because I do think we often talk about equity Specifically in terms of outcomes, but I think there's two other things we should also think about which I'll call decision-making equity and Process equity So we often say well, let's make sure this is a particular outcome for these groups and that's an equitable outcome But part of the challenge is who's at the table making the decisions You see this in the innovation space as well technology space So decision-making equity as well as process equity Who is involved in setting up the process and being involved in the process and giving input even if they're not a decision-maker? So I do think we need to think about equity not just in terms of the final outcome But who are the decision-makers and then who's creating the process and being a part of it? Yeah, I was hoping you could maybe build on that and Give us some thoughts about the particular mobility challenges faced by low-income people and how you know income stratifications kind of Lay out in the mobility space Yeah, you know, I'll build off of what Kelvin just said, you know for the team at Bay Area List Can we think about equity? No, we think about it in the frame of power That's really what equity is power having the decision-making power to have control over one's own life And so for us here particularly in the Bay Area as many of you may have heard how many of you are Bay Area residents I'm just curious. All right, we got a good number of Bay Area folks So I don't need to talk about the housing crisis. We all know about that's going on That's kind of overwhelming all of us here, you know But you know as we all see here, it really is affecting everyone just disproportionately affecting Our low and modern income communities And so as we think about the displacement risks that are that are happening Here at LISC we're being very Deliberate and intentional and working with our community partners and working with our development partners and working with our We're at Socap our investors And thinking about what are the development strategies? What are the development products that we can offer that really have these concerns of Displacement and an advancing development without displacement at the core Like a can you sort of frame that and the work that Bay Area LISC is doing in the context of the regional economy and You know thinking about what what are the impacts to the region not just on low-income people directly that they Hard to get where they want to go But what are what are the impacts that everybody is feeling at the consequence of it being hard to get around? Yeah, absolutely, you know, we look for example at Number of mega commuters in the Bay Area now. I didn't realize that some of those mega commuters are actually coming from Tijuana That is that is that is new to me But but many of them are coming from the Central Valley or they're coming from Northern California. They're coming, you know from Monterey There are buses that are run from UCSF every day to east of Sacramento To get people to work on staff at the UCSF hospital not specific to UCSF But that's just one example of the employers that we work with and what they have to do to get people from where they can afford to live to where they actually work and It has a huge impact on these people obviously it has a huge impact on their communities because when you're mega commuting You're not at home with your family. You're not, you know, creating the social fabric, you know Creating civic institutions and so on that's a big issue and then it has you know cascading effects So the you know transportation networks are snarled people say well, we can't build more housing Because we've got you know these bad traffic But if the housing is being built two hours away and people are using those transportation networks Then that's not actually putting us in a better situation. So it's obviously extraordinarily important for The specific people that we're talking about but it also has ripple effects within the broader economy Anyone else want to add anything on that before I kind of shoot yours a little bit So Julie I was hoping you could talk I know that you know There's the the broad picture in terms of what's happening and I think you've got a pretty clear picture about that Can you talk a little bit about some of the companies that you're seeing in the space and some of the Maybe the challenges to finding companies that can Contribute to a solution to this problem that that might you know potentially be able to ameliorate some of these Yeah, and I think that this is actually quite a controversial topic in some ways I mean how many of you would say that technology has been a positive force for transportation Okay, good But it isn't without its controversy in some ways right because you know you have this double-sided You know double-edged sword with ride-sharing for example So, you know, you've got people being employed as drivers, but on the flip side You have folks coming in from Tijuana, Mexico, you know living this kind of lifestyle that we don't consider to be Particularly healthy or maybe vibrant in some ways So, you know, there are downsides with technology when we evaluate startups in the transportation space One thing that we look for is intentionality around not only creating solutions for city dwellers But making sure that those city dwellers aren't just the most affluent the 1% Making sure that they can be applicable across many residents in a city So a good example of that we were the earliest investor in a company based here in the Bay Area called Chariot Maybe you guys have seen their bright vans around the city I would describe them as a commuter shuttle service that's somewhere between municipal transit bus lines and the peer-to-peer solutions in ride-sharing So they essentially aggregate groups of users to do this commuter shuttle and you can get commuter shuttle routes operational within your neighborhood very quickly and what I think they did really well is it makes sure that they were applicable to all city residents, so they integrated with public benefits programs like wage work So they were price comparable and affordable to many groups of people. They also employed Low and moderate income drivers, and so they ended up hiring about 150 drivers from within the community Within their first two years of operations. So within two years I think they actually amassed a lot of city credibility because they were actually in Engaging with stakeholders the local supervisors local community groups, and they ended up being the last commuter shuttle left standing and actually they got acquired by Ford less than two years after their initial launch to build out Ford smart Mobility line so you can now find Chariot across about a dozen cities in the US and London Which is really exciting, and I think that's a great example of you know Not all transit solutions will be everything for everybody But trying to have a lens toward all city residents creating good jobs providing W2 full-time employment instead of 1099 contract work These are all things that good employers can do and being proactive about trying to help startups do that can make a real difference Yeah, so I think I think Chariot is great And I think these can make the shuttles that the company send out are sort of necessary But it's a weird Solution, right? I mean like it's sort of we're doing that because on some level we can't do public transportation well in the country and so we did this you know project You know called the young men of color employment partnership where we're specifically looking at getting in young men primarily African-American And Latino into jobs that our employers and just the the transportation connectivity and especially the transportation Connectivity through public transit is huge You know there was a UPS facility that was paying a couple of dollars an hour or more than another one But it wasn't transit served and so you know the young men were coming to us and saying like this is cost prohibitive like and then You look at the academic research and it shows that right that the employers that are you know served by public transit Especially affordable public transit, you know just have substantially, you know more diverse populations and so on and so it's Like again, I love chariot. I believe they may be a member of the Bay Area Council But it's it's a weird way to go. We're like, you know doing these, you know sort of workarounds to Try to because we can't do real public transit. So do you have a question from the audience that? Did you want to jump in or Mike? Well, you should we'll just real quickly to that specific question So it's interesting a good example. This is the Oakland Airport connector So, you know, we built the Oakland Airport connector It is you know, fairly expensive to use, you know, just like when you go into San Francisco on Bart You know, you end up paying, you know another eight bucks It turns out it's cheaper for me and my family to get in a lift from our house Like 15 miles from the airport if there are three of us then it is to ride Bart to the airport So there have been real impacts on the public transportation system, especially off-hours It's still as jammed as it ever was during rush hour. But yeah, there has been an impact on the the sort of Revenue and you know a number of different things from from having these rideshare services. Can I just jump in and say I will Disagree with that respectfully not because I don't think There are challenges to funding public transit I do think there are many of those but I would argue that many of the reasons that there are these workaround solutions is because When public transit isn't serving everybody it becomes and it's not reliable it becomes much easier to do a workaround I actually think there's a long history not just in San Francisco But in other cities like New York of having private solutions that then become part of public domain So for example the cable car lines there used to be private Chitney services a long time ago and the reason that these become part of the public domain at some point is because they realize That they're getting so much utilization among the population that there actually becomes Incentive to start funding some of those services and sure It's actually a great example of one that started as direct to consumer and direct to business and then City municipality of the municipality here actually talked to them about augmenting their night owl service And so I think that there are ways to integrate the public and private in a way that can be really I think Great for all city residents. Well, I want to jump into this little intellectual slug fest And I don't I don't disagree to be clear Because actually I'll say that I think both of your responses are myopic. Okay, cool See I come in swinging right Brooklyn Because we're presupposing that the solution to this mobility problem is a mobility solution And so what if we said let's bring more health care or jobs or whatever the thing We're trying to access through this better mobility Closer to where the people already are So, you know, my organization is called smart growth America and one of the basic principles of smart growth is to build things More densely and to bring more of the things that people want to the places. They already are So adding to your point about displacement not only do we need to fight displacement people are now being displaced in place right because they live in the suburbs already where a lot of poverty is moving or already exists and The problem isn't that they're getting kicked out of where they are. It's that there's nothing where they are So, you know, we just we just need to make sure that when we think about all of these issues Mobility issues are, you know, sort of inextricably intertwined with housing issues and are inextricably Intertwined with economic development. Yeah, and so even whether it's public or private We need to make sure that we're solving the right Problem with not just a solution. It's the same topic but looking at all the ranges of solving the problem Yeah, couldn't possibly agree with you more we do a lot of work You know in the Central Valley and what we call the Northern California mega region and they say like look if your train You know your high-speed train is just a mechanism of like getting commuters for the Bay Area That's not something we're interested in supporting if it can bring Economic development to our communities so that we have the resources that we want, you know to continue to have Or to improve Fresno or whatever it is then we're okay with that so figuring out that balance is a challenge But let's call a spade a spade in an ideal world. Sure We'd build up a dense housing all over transit centers that has been blocked time and again in the state Legislature, it's been blocked by the city There are a lot of forces at work that are actually preventing dense development around transit areas here in the Bay Area Which is really unfortunate So the reason we have all these workarounds and people getting around in scooters and e-bikes and you know everything else under The Sun is because literally our you know, we don't have the policy and Political will to do the thing that we all believe is right which is building dense housing. Yeah, we supported a 27 So I'm all with you that sorry that's like for those of you who aren't you know following So there there was a bill about essentially making it easier to build more dense housing around Transit served areas and we didn't we didn't quite get there this year Yeah, but we did get a bill allowing Bart to develop around its own station So there's there's interesting stuff. Sorry. We're getting like crazy into the Bay Area weeds. We can take it back I'll do that a little bit unless there's someone from the audience who wants to jump in Anybody want to get into this little dog? Yeah, I'm gonna get into 827 on the stage Back in time. Okay. There you go. There you go. Go back to what Calvin said And you know, I think you've got to talk about race in this conversation, you know when you're talking about transportation So you take both instances You know, you're trying to get people to jobs A lot of resistance people color coming in to those neighborhoods and then you know, you start to Try to bring jobs to people then you got to deal with the issue of gentrification at some point Yeah, white people that are pushing out people color. I mean those are broad but I think you know questions around what are some solutions? Or some incremental steps to start to break that down because I think you've got to get to Exposure and you know start to build some community where you where you do have some more large-scale solutions Did anybody want to respond to that? um The only thing I'll say and again this sort of goes back to you know, are these as you call them workarounds a response to the lack of Efficacy of sort of publicly provided services I think it's fine I don't think it's an either or sort of thing But I do think that the public sector has to own and be responsible for the things It's not getting right and the private sector Irrespective of how it's doing it to the extent it's doing these work workarounds need to also Take responsibility for the negative externalities that it's creating whether it's a workaround as a solution to a public sector Failure or not it still should be responsible for the things that it's happening Whether it's increasing traffic congestion as a as a function of ride sharing or you know You can think of five ten different things I just think that there's it isn't like because I'm solving a problem because of your failures I don't have to deal with any of my issues When you look at some of the micro transit solutions scooters and the like you see and going to this point about race Even in DC, you'll see different adaptation by African-Americans and poor neighborhoods if you compare Dockless bike share versus dockless scooters and you would say why is that right because that doesn't make any sense It's kind of the same thing But when you look at the technology and what it takes to actually get a scooter versus get a dockless bike It's totally different and so and you see those differences specific to race. So I think it really comes down to one understanding that you need to think about these differences to Having the data so having the private and public sector share the data Because I know data is is really you know often time the real game It's like I created a company to create the data so somebody can buy me But no, I would that's probably a little pejorative But I do think that unless we say one we need to be intentional on understanding these racial differences in terms of What's actually happening to we share the data so we actually know typically the public sector which now Unlike ever before has less of the data like a lot of the aggregate stuff is all housed in private sector Organization, but how do we share that in a way that's reasonable? And then finally saying once we know that there's some differences that are specific to race We need to be intentional about solutions that are specific to race and that's not bad It's not a zero-sum game to say well Hey, if there are Asian Americans in the Chinatown neighborhood in Boston And a lot of them are seniors the way we solve their mobility problems are going to be different than young Men of color in the Bay Area. It's just going to be different and we just need to be upfront about that Julie, do you know whether the folks who are using chariot and services like that are Essentially opting away from public transit to use them or is it additive to their existing sort of transportation? So the argument we've always made is augmentation of public services And it's being additive and I think a big part of that has been their cooperation with SFMTA and with municipal services They see themselves as a first and last mile solution And there are a lot of great examples that they've used in their own studies To kind of prove that that said, you know I hear the argument loud and clear which is that many of these workaround solutions may ultimately take people away from certain municipal transit I'm not often in the role of being the tech optimist on a panel And so I'm happy to embrace that right now because usually I'm in these tech circles where people are very Myopic about you know technology is the panacea for all good. I know that that is not realistic But I will say that you know as a concept ride-sharing did not exist seven years ago That is crazy and mind-blowing how pervasive it's become and how much of a part of everyday life It has become for a lot of people not only as an employment opportunity But for me, I've lived in the city for a long time And you know, I never plan on having a car because I can augment all of my you know transit services between ride-share Zip car and you know the like I think there are a lot of positive Friends that can happen, you know They show that there are studies saying people in areas that were previously overlooked and you know higher is of density of lower lower-income neighborhoods Neighborhoods with a lot of people of color were previously under service by cabs now They have a lot more access because of ride-sharing the flip side to Calvin's point huge congestion problems That are creating a whole other world of hurt and I would say for chariot You know, they have created a lot of positive things in the community I would argue that said, you know, I think there was a lot of concern from municipal transit that you know Are you actually removing riders from the system or are you augmenting? The current services being offered and when they really bought into the idea that they were augmenting well, then they said to chariot Well, here are 20 lines that we're currently cutting back capacity on can you help fill the gaps there? And I think that can be a really productive conversation So I'm happy to take the tech optimist role that said You know, there are a ton of problems with transportation, which is why I think we're having this conversation And there are so many elements that are brought in most importantly housing and mega commuting that are creating really negative externalities in the system. I Think access is a great benefit and is really important and I would still say that I think with in many communities You know, well, you know if someone has a smartphone and we can have our own debate on the digital divide And if someone has a smartphone these days or not, you know, if they have the app You know, can they actually still afford to have, you know, that ride? Is it something that can really be You know an everyday or you know, a couple times a week occurrence, right? Or is it something that they actually rely on as so many folks rely on is practically, you know A daily part of their commute these days and I would say that you know in many of the communities that we serve It's much more of the of the former in terms of you know It's not something that is really actually accessible technically accessible but not actually accessible and so there seems to be a greater divide then you know and You know between You know those who can do that and those who can and that's something that we as list are really really cautious of as we think about just general cost of living and what the the general everyday experience is like for the community members that we're serving so Great, and I want to build on that because I think there is data suggesting that at least at the level of Many of the rideshare companies I think Steven's off did a paper on this for the cars center at Stanford about the fact that cancellations by drivers for example are more Disproportionately affect people with names that are associated with people of color So the same kinds of discrimination that we've seen in housing and other contexts actually flows all the way down to the individual rideshare driver And I think that that highlights the fact that maybe we can't we shouldn't expect necessarily private companies to solve equity challenges that are you know pervasive and associated with structural racism, right? That that's probably a bridge too far and Cynthia. I'm wondering if you could kind of speak to the fact that or Suggest what we should be doing in order to prevent these solutions from widening the divide that we have already I think it's a I would like to eliminate between you know taking on the responsibility of solving, let's say structural racism I'm gonna leave it to you Kelvin. Thank you We're gonna need another hour for this panel. Can you guys just but versus you know being aware of the opportunities and risks? You know that are inherent in there in their business model, and I think it is is not just about You know the moral imperative there, but it is about the The economic imperative and thinking about okay, how can you in the case of what you just mentioned? I haven't I would love to actually see the study Reuben, but you know that's that's money That's lost on the table right there's a customers that are not being served And there is a real economic argument, you know to address that issue beyond obviously that are you kidding me? WTF if you will that so Just wanted to add one thing that I think it's lost in all this So one of our sort of subgroups is called transportation for America One of the things that we're trying to do in the public sector is sort of something that the private sector or Already does which is actually have performance measures for what you're doing and Actually saying well, you know the public sector will talk about equity and a lot of these issues But then they'll go invest in Transportation and mobility in the same ways that they always invest so when it comes to transportation and mobility You know the focus will be level of service like how is traffic flow or the speed like how fast can I get from point A to point B? Sorry, it chokes me up to even think about this stuff but if you use those as your performance measures to see whether you're doing things correctly and Simultaneously saying well racial equity is important then you really will never Invest in a way that will have the the impact on structural racism But if you say upfront well one let's look at the social determinants of health for different racial populations And let's look at those in the context of if we made Three alternative types of transportation investments, which ones would better more positively affect those social determinants of health You actually might make a different investment decision and this goes to be an impact conference to say You know a lot of funders will fund, you know sort of the same all things So beyond it being interconnected So you might need to fund the housing solution to fix a mobility problem You also need to think about what are you actually measuring and so when you talk about equity and racial equity like what are the actual components that would create equity and then say what would be the mobility or Transportation investments to get to that and it's usually not the things that we think about because you'll see as an example that Lower income people of color who work in retail jobs well level of service like how good are we doing things during rush hour? Doesn't really work when you're working a retail job or a restaurant job Well, you need to be there at 5 a.m. And you need you're getting home after sort of rush hour Yeah, so you know, it's we actually differently. Yeah, we actually ran into that with another one of the employers that the You know the hours they were wanting to have people work weren't served by public transportation in the Bay Area I mean, but I to be clear. I don't think that it you know my concern for what's happening in public transportation. It's not TNC My concerns what's happening with public transportation? What is TNC? Oh, sorry the the transportation network companies that you know ride-hailing Services, it's that we're not actually funding transportation in the country, right? I mean like, you know, let's let's you know I mean whatever our goals would be we can't achieve them because we're not actually building our Infrastructure currently and to the extent that we are it's done by like bizarre formula that isn't you know sort of efficient for You know achieving any particular type of goal in the Bay Area costs a billion dollars to buy to build a mile of BART You know like that's the actual problem with getting our infrastructure built like here in the Bay Area I think it's the same number in New York. Yeah subway for the so like, you know, let's let's just be fairly clear about that So whoever wins the mega millions could just buy a mile of BART that is not likely going to be Choose but like it would be super publicly spirited but can we also just acknowledge something which is not only a lack of Funding for it and the fact that the funding costs are Astronomically high, but you know when it comes to government what they really care about or is safety access and fairness They are not known for efficiency when they create solutions for transit They want to make sure that it has accessibility to everybody that it's safe and there's fairness and equity loans to it Which is extremely laudable but what happens is that you don't end up creating the most efficient solutions and I would argue that one of the reasons Many people don't use bus lines is because when they're built out They often stop at every single stoplight because you want to make it accessible for all businesses There are a lot of groups that go into lobbying for it And so what ends up happening is you naturally build these Workarounds as we've been calling them because efficiency isn't the ultimate objective when it comes to building a lot of these solutions And that's okay, but it and in a great, you know Utopia type of world of course public transit would offer all solutions for everybody It would get us to from point A to B really quickly It would be super efficient and reliable and we could all use that but that's never been shown We but look we okay, so we're not an especially serious country right now. How many how many people have been to China recently? Okay, that's this country. So, you know while we've done whatever the hell we've been you define So And it's called Suzhou It's in China. It's got over 10 million people most people in the United States have not actually heard about it since 2016 They've created a subway system with 96 stops that you know what is actually super good So if you've been to like this, oh, well, you know, it's like they do no actually It's better than any subway system that I've been on in the United States, right? And that kind of public infrastructure is something we don't do in the United States anymore And this has nothing to do with Immunism versus capitalism. We used to do this shit. We used to actually build sorry I don't know if we're allowed to cut in front NPR or something But like I believe that out we used to actually do that in the United States and are like our unwillingness to continue to build the type of public infrastructure that would help create equity through creating economic Opportunity for people to you know access these jobs and like live in these communities Isn't something we do anymore, but like also China has been one of the most active users of ride sharing with Diddy Oh, yeah, and they've built out dockless bike sharing as one of the most commonly used forms of Transportation to get around so what I would argue is I totally agree I would love to see major investment in public infrastructure But that doesn't mean these other alternative solutions aren't still a part of the transit landscape. Yes Yes, yes, there's just but I think what was those with those both myopic I Don't know you came in earlier like swinging. I'd like yes Since you teed that up, I mean To me part of the challenge is something you just said and hate to focus on something you just said Which is it's not the most efficient way to get from A to B. Yeah, but if you look at traffic fatality fatality data Pedestrian deaths using of all of the externalities that come from creating the most efficiencies It's not just congestive More people of color are getting killed By virtue of us trying to figure out how to get people faster to where they want to go And so I think there's a larger question of if we continue to focus on efficiencies We'll never get to equity because at some point you actually need to have a level of service that gets to where people are And if the poor people are in a place where it's stop number 96 and that will create Inefficiencies in the system then either you have to decide the priority is equity to these particularly group particular groups or efficiency or if the you know the situation is well We want to make sure everybody can get as fast as possible between A and B Well if that cause the cause of that is more people are going to get hit because you know There's a place in Louisville, Kentucky. It's called Dixie Highway anybody here from Louisville and it has a nickname like the highway of death or something like that and There's all these traffic fatalities and it's one of you know If you go to Atlanta or other places where there's these essentially like four or five lane highways in a regular neighborhood and The particular low-income folks that live in that neighborhood have to get across those what would be a street It's like a mini highway and more more of them die Because we're trying to get people as fast as possible and be as efficient So at some point we just have to say what is our priority and if it's just efficiency I think we're gonna end up we're gonna we're gonna be deciding to kill more people. That's just what it is I'm especially curious from Calvin Since you work with a lot of cities around the country. Have you seen any Municipalities really embrace what you're talking about around decision-making equity Process equity especially from a racial equity lens Which is the touchiest for politicians actually embrace Have you seen? Have you seen any municipalities actually embrace that on a broad scale with their urban planning decision-making? Yeah, I mean a great example out here would be Seattle and you can you can Google they they've created Basically, they're both an external and internal Set of metrics that they apply to every budget decision personnel decisions and the like The group race for it. I believe work with them and gear actually to create this whole framework for Seattle That's one example, and maybe that's the progressive example We just did a webinar with the state transportation director in Tennessee and You know Tennessee being that bastion of progressiveness It's a real state. It's a real state, but anybody here from Tennessee Well, I was gonna say anything bad about Tennessee actually what I was gonna say is What you'll hear in states that aren't considered progressive is they don't use the vocabulary But they're still trying to get to the outcomes So you're not gonna hear them talk about climate change. You're not gonna hear them talk about community revitalization But they will specifically Actually this webinar basically they talked about how they tried to get to these outcomes Without actually talking about race specifically, and you know, there's a push-pull there So I think you see different examples Depending on where you go and kind of where you are on the spectrum Really in a political sense the other I would say Variable is really kind of small town and rural areas versus larger metropolitan areas and in the smaller areas part of the challenge Is that they don't have any urban planning expertise? So you'll go to a small small city or town and there's no urban planner on staff at all So a lot of the solutions we talk about are kind of urban planning solutions And it's literally like the mayor who's like a part-time volunteer who's trying to figure these things out So there's some challenges there because they if you don't have the urban planning expertise It's hard to even get to how do you deal with some of the race? Specification, how do we think about like process equity like who gets to participate? So for example, you know, we talk about in San Francisco Well, we want to make sure to have the people in the neighborhoods Actually making the decisions about whether to develop in San Francisco Well, what about all of the African-American families that have been displaced from San Francisco that are living in the East Bay? Or what about in the East Bay? What about the teachers for Oakland who are living in Antioch? Like who actually gets to be around that table is an interesting question We've decided it should be only the people that live in the neighborhood Sometimes we feel good about that if it's a certain kind of neighborhood or angry about that if it's another kind of neighborhood but it's the same frickin thing and Like how do we how do we build in process equity? That that respects the fact that people are in many places. I Don't know that I know the answer to that I mean, I that's actually it's a huge challenge all over the place and I think what I keep hearing is you know this description of a bit of a policy gridlock between you know an inability to build transportation infrastructure and Challenges building housing where the transportation infrastructure is or other things around where the transportation infrastructure exists Julie courageously representing the private sector's attempt at Just seeing the the the opportunity there and the need to get people from place to place and bridging some of that and I'm wondering given the sort of focus of this particular conference and Cynthia some of the work that you've done whether there is any other role like I'm a real estate guy Is there a role for the real estate sector and the private you know private developers or Private investors who care about real estate and building things in Solving any of these challenges or do we are we just sort of also kind of victims like everybody else? I'm happy to take first crack and yeah And I'm actually gonna Teal off a bit of of Micah's question around process equity. What does that really look like so? You know for us as a list and particularly you know through our office, you know We are a community about the financial institution, you know We provide financing and TA to reinforce community leaders organization We're really a fund manager quite frankly if you take away all the soft stuff But what is really core to us is community engagement? And so we're looking at efforts on a regional level now and to your point Micah, you know if we're looking at what's going on in San Francisco and we're recognizing that there are Hundreds of African-American families Thousands tens of thousands for the past few years who've left San Francisco Who've moved out to Antioch to Pittsburgh so for non-bay area folks really East Contra Costa County So really far out commuting maybe an hour hour and a half back in best, right? I have I actually have one member of my my team member Who our office in Oakland he commutes three hours on public transit from Morgan Hill? To our office every day But to and he actually is our communication officer and can speak from that personal perspective And so we are looking at a regional level, you know, who are the community residents who are the community leaders What are the the CDC is a community about in corporations, you know What are the key institutions that you think of that are informally, but are really holders of power like for example? churches and Other social structures, how do we think about including that voice into the fund? So how does that what does that mean for how we think about the investment products the fund offers? How does that think about you know, what screens we have for what investment projects and what investees we take a closer look at? How do we how do we think about that in terms of talking about our investments, you know with the community? you know before approval even which is you know dicey as as Julie talked about, you know and kind of the hyper political atmosphere that is in the Bay Area to how do we talk about what investments? We make Afterwards and making sure that we're learning from the investment and really getting a hands-on First-person account from the community who's being affected by these investments as to has this actually led to XYZ positive impact Or has this unintentionally led to some other type of inequities? So there are all these other factors that we think about from the list perspective being as a fund manager You know, how do we really drive equity and think about it through that process equity lens? Well, I make two points one on the process equity side I think we leave out small business owners when we talk about community engagement And if you think about it many small business owners actually are in that neighborhood more than residents They're there 12 14 hours a day where you're a resident you sort of live you sleep there But in terms of actual time spent and seeing what's happening often times small business owners are there more often and our community Engagement processes are often set up at the time where they're doing their thing, right? And so we never get their input at all and particularly on urban corridors or transportation corridors Whether it's urban or not those small business owners have some thoughts and probably some good insights on what would be useful and helpful And so we do need to broaden our engagement to include them even if sometimes it's going to them. Yeah I would also say vis-a-vis this concept or this conference. We need to invest differently. So Smart growth America we have but we've created a coalition of kind of smart growth dense development focus or TOD developers around the country called locusts And part of our goal is to say well if we want to do real estate differently and we think etoD is important We need to go out and find the like-minded real estate developers who are private sector They're not mission-based. They're profit-oriented But they understand and believe as well as some of these place-based things that we think about Actually can be positive for their ROI or their IRR is whatever you know can be mission-based and profit-oriented real clear Real clear and I know that because I worked at bridge But I'm making the point that we even though that is true You can go find folks that don't have a mission basis at all and Still talk to them specifically about how the things that we would want done could be done and actually help them But we actually need to have funders go and invest in those folks and create peer networks Among those folks to say well, how did you get through the entitlement process in the Bay Area to get those units done? And how did you spend the money to figure out how to pay for that pedestrian infrastructure? Even though your equity doesn't usually pay for those type of things like they look at your soft costs and hard-cost budgets And they're like well, I'm not paying for this this and this and you're like well one That's necessary for my returns to the public sector is requiring it and debt and equity is like well I'm not paying for that stuff that seems like superfluous So I think some of it is if you're a funder you're a foundation Organization like yours needs to think about what you invest and say if we want a certain type of housing We also need to invest in these kind of wraparound things that help the housing and not just the housing itself So we're thinking about production of units There's some investment that needs to happen there But if you invest in this other place-based stuff whether it's the stuff itself the infrastructure that kind of no one Wants to pay for and everyone's like no that's your job public sector and the public sector is like no private sector If you want to do this then you're gonna have to pay for it like I think that's an investment place That's kind of there's a gap there that could be filled But then also thinking about not just investing in that infrastructure But investing in the type of real estate developers private sector sector equity providers Who have this mentality already so as opposed to like you know beating your head against the wall and trying to change Purely profit-motive Motivated folks to do something totally differently. Well, why don't you just find the folks that already think that way whether they're mission-based or not and invest in them? So there's some difference in how we invest in either I Just want to throw something out there Which is we just spent a long time Acknowledging the community role and how to engage the community in order to build the best you know kind of solutions But that said we also said the best examples of public infrastructure Building happened in China where frankly there's not a lot of community engagement happening So I want to acknowledge the fact that when you do engage the community when you try to bring in these different voices It inherently slows down the process makes it less efficient And that's okay because what the trade-off here is we want community voices involved in the transit and real estate development of our cities I mean, I I think it's a harder problem than we want to think that it is So, you know, we do a lot of work with Urban Strategies Council And they've you know been working with the Aspen, you know opportunity folks and you know They talked about really the problem with you know paternalism and equity right that like we know what's good for you So here's the outcome that we're gonna, you know, we're gonna advance And so we want to make sure to get all these people around the table We don't want to presuppose that process equity will necessarily produce outcomes equity I'm not suggesting that it won't but they're not you know, it's I think it's a harder question than we Then we then we want to think that it is Okay, so I'm getting waved from the back I want to just is there anyone from the audience that has a question just as we wrap up here And if not, I want to we got one. I've got time until they I got in a little late You may have addressed this already, but this is really the issue of people lower-income workers Computing two hours into the Bay Area and so I know there's long-term solutions you've been discussing But what about short-term solutions? Are there any kind of? Rideshare chariot kind of things being investigated for people commuting from Modesto to San Jose etc etc because I work in the food sector and Where weight is a 64% lower than the average wage and this is really the factor and it's a major issue for these businesses Being viable and trying to stay in cities in San Jose when they're all their workers are coming in from Tracy's Right and looking for what what can we do in the next three years before we yeah, well We can do some awesome private sector workarounds, but the But we've actually thought about this a lot, which is you know, you've got all of these You know individual companies with their individual buses. Is there a collective? You know, you know lower-income it's not yet a you know Maybe it eventually becomes a product a public sector solution But is there a way to do sort of a mid like a public-private partnership to get you know More buses on the roads for these folks to lower and improve their commutes. They can play video games along the way Right exactly Yeah, I also think that it's not just a we should not only think private company But industry so you could have like the retail cluster Yeah, could get together and say if you aggregate, you know a lot of the a lot of folks that are traveling work in restaurants Right, but almost none of the restaurants have more than 20 employees So it's never gonna be a one individual private restaurant solution set for even a shuttle Yeah, but if you said let's take the retail cluster or a restaurant cluster in a particular geographic area and Aggregate all those businesses and and figure out where all their employees work Then you can have a solution. There's been solutions like that in the Midwest with health care systems Where they essentially say when we look at where all our employees are coming from if we aggregated them all we'd have enough to make an efficient Shuttle based system which they've done, but it requires some sort of organizing force to say no individual company has the time to think this through I Just want to jump in quickly and say you know one of the reasons that we think of chariot as a first and last mile solution So one of their first routes that was crowdsourced from the community actually went from the Embarcadero BART station To Fisherman's Wharf and we were really surprised by that because we said who's going from a business neighborhood to kind of a tourist neighborhood What we realized it was workers that were using it as a last mile solution once they got off the BART from their East Bay kind of stop They needed a way to get to their jobs as concierge's hotels Restaurant tours etc. And so there was no solution other than that trolley that runs every 20 minutes and costs quite a bit of money And so that was what chariot was essentially used for one of the challenges with doing kind of that longer term commute Ride-sharing solution is essentially the lack of density. So people are Located all over in a kind of sprawled suburb way And how do you aggregate everybody from one stop to the next and so people have tried to make Technology-enabled casual carpool things like that But we haven't seen a good mid and long-term range solution yet And I'm hoping we can get there by virtue of density and other kind of factors All right, I think if I ever want to be allowed to come back to soak up Here I hope that you join me in thanking this panel I thought this was a great really super lively conversation. So thank you all so much for coming out here. Thank you for being here