Welcome to my web site. The site is a repository for the articles I have written over the years, as well as links to my current work at The Brookings Institution, the University of Michigan Graduate Real Estate Program, my development firm, Arcadia Land Company, and my most recent book, The Option of Urbanism; Investing in a New American Dream”. .

The building of the built environment (real estate and the infrastructure that supports real estate) is in the middle of a structural change, only comparable to the change that took place 50-60 years ago. That mid-20th century structural change converted real estate development into a modular, formula-driven industry, based upon access and parking of automobiles and trucks; I refer to it as “drivable sub-urbanism”. It responded to market demand and yielded many benefits. Yet we now know that it actually narrowed consumer options, consumed land at 6-8 times population growth and produced “could be anywhere” places, based upon the “19 standard product types”. These drivable sub-urban formulas are re-enforced by the financing of much of commercial real estate which has turned what for thousands of years was a 40-year asset class into a product with a 7-10 year life.

There are many unintended social, economic, health and environmental consequences resulting from how America has been developing its built environment over the past two generations. These consequences include, among others:
• dependency on a car/truck-only transportation system
• social segregation and secession of elites,
• dependency of about 1/3rd of the population who do not drive; they are therefore not full participants in our society,
• subsidized public and private infrastructure for drivable sub-urban development that is increasingly expensive to build and maintain,
• lack of unintentional daily exercise which has partially contributed to the obesity epidemic,
• indirect impact on American foreign policy which is skewed toward securing sources of foreign oil from countries increasingly hostile to the US,
• economic exposure to increasing oil prices as the potential of “peak oil” approaches and
• over 70% of greenhouse gas emissions and, therefore, the major contributor toward climate change.

Over the past 15 years, many consumers have been demanding different options to the “one-size-fits-all” drivable sub-urbanism. While single-family homes on large lots and strip commercial will be a significant part of the market for decades to come, there are many segments of the population that want something different; what can be broadly called “walkable urbanism”. These alternatives include downtown and suburban downtown revitalization, New Urbanism, transit-oriented development, green field mixed-use development (“lifestyle centers”), regional mall redevelopment, among others. Progressive public policy responses that allow for and promote this kind of development include smart growth, strategy and management of walkable urban places, impact fees that “level the planning field”, affordable & workforce housing development and strategy and management of metropolitan areas.

There is pent-up market demand for the alternative to drivable sub-urbanism that is readily apparent and we in real estate are re-tooling how we design, plan, regulate and finance to serve these markets. There has been much accomplished in this regard over the past decade, led by real estate developers, political and civic leaders, organizations such as Urban Land Institute, Congress of the New Urbanism and my home organizations, the Brookings Institution and the University of Michigan.

Working with many like-minded people and institutions, we are all formulating and implementing the next American Dream.

© Copyright 2008. Christopher B. Leinberger.  All Rights Reserved
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