Building Better Cities

Cities don't just happen. They're shaped by the choices we make about housing, transportation, infrastructure, public spaces, and the communities we want to become. Yet too often, the systems we rely on make it difficult to build the places people need. Building Better Cities with Dr. Kate Gasparro goes behind the scenes with the leaders, builders, thinkers, and innovators reimagining how cities grow. Each episode explores the ideas and solutions helping create more sustainable, equitable, and thriving communities. Breaking norms. Building cities.

Building Better Cities is a society podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 44 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Unknown Host hosts Building Better Cities, a society show with 44 episodes published.

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  Building Better Cities

  The Holy Grail of Urbanism: Land Value Tax with Greg Miller

  Aug 5, 202635 min

  What if the biggest obstacle to building more housing and creating more sustainable urban development isn't zoning or financing — it's how we tax land? In this episode of Building Better Cities , host Kate Gasparro sits down with Greg Miller , founder of the Center for Land Economics , to unpack land value tax (LVT) and why it might be the missing lever for building more housing, increasing infrastructure investment, and achieving equitable community outcomes. Land is America's most valuable natural resource, worth an estimated $50 trillion — yet our current property tax system often rewards speculation over productive use. Greg and Kate dig into why vacant lots and surface parking lots in downtown corridors pay a fraction of the taxes that adjacent building tenants and businesses do, and how that imbalance shapes urban infrastructure, housing supply, and neighborhood investment. This conversation covers: What land value tax actually is — and how it differs from a standard property tax The economics of land speculation and why it undermines sustainable cities Real-world case studies , including Pittsburgh's decades-long experiment with split-rate taxation and a recent Spokane, Washington policy analysis The history of Henry George and the 19th-century roots of land value tax theory How land value capture connects to tax increment financing (TIF) , including New York City's Interborough Express (IBX) project Practical policy levers cities and states can use to implement land value tax, from assessment reform to building exemptions Common misconceptions about land value tax and how to address them Whether you work in real estate, urban planning, municipal finance, or public-private partnerships, this episode offers a framework for thinking about how cities capture — and reinvest — the value they create. Resources: Pittsburgh should return to its roots in land value taxation (Pittsburgh Post Gazette) Could a LVT Fund the IBX? (Streetsblog NYC) America's land crisis is roaring back into politics (The Washington Post) Yes, a LVT is possible in Washington State (Sightline) The Hidden Costs of Tax Increment Financing (Lincoln Land Policy Institute)

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  Building Better Cities

  How Urban Design Pushes Families to the Burbs

  Jul 23, 202630 min

  Walk through any major American city and notice what's missing. Not coffee shops or co-working spaces — those are everywhere. What you won't see much of are children. Families with kids. People who chose the city not just for a season of life, but permanently. That absence is telling a story — and the data backs it up. Young families with children are a shrinking part of the U.S. population in major urban centers. A new Urban Institute report warns that cities that fail to retain families may face shrinking school systems, weaker tax bases, and increasing poverty concentration — while family retention can stabilize housing demand, sustain workforce pipelines, and strengthen local economies. This isn't just a demographic footnote. It's a crisis of urban development — and it has a design dimension that too few people are talking about. In this episode, host Kate Gasparro sits down with Alicia Pederson — the Courtyard Urbanist — to explore how a century of narrow, deep-lot development has quietly made American cities hostile to families. Drawing on examples from Copenhagen, Stockholm, Berlin, and Amsterdam, Alicia makes the case for the courtyard block: a model of city infrastructure that delivers higher density, better unit design, shared green space, and the walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods that keep families in cities for the long haul. If you work in city development, urban planning, real estate, or public policy — or if you've ever wondered why American cities feel increasingly built for everyone except families — this conversation is for you. Resources: Towards a New Aesthetics of Abundance: Courtyard Urbanism (Create Streets) Young Families Are Leaving Many Large US Cities − Here’s Why That Matters (Iowa State University) This demographic shift could reshape cities, Urban Institute says (Smart Cities Dive) Cities made a bet on millennials — but forgot one key thing (Vox) The Urban Family Exodus Is a Warning for Progressives (The Atlantic) How Amsterdam is reviving the fine-grained courtyard block (Courtyard Urbanist) Illinois governor vows continued housing push as statewide zoning proposal hits a wall (Smart Cities Dive)

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  Building Better Cities

  When Impact is the Asset: Transforming Forgotten Spaces with Lindsey Scannapieco

  Jul 8, 202635 min

  In 2014, the Philadelphia school district auctioned off a shuttered vocational school in South Philly — 340,000 square feet, built like a bomb shelter. Seven developers looked at it. Some bid a dollar. Lindsey Scannapieco bid $1.75 million. That building is now Bok : home to more than 200 businesses, the majority owned by women and people of color, and one of the most celebrated adaptive reuse projects in the country. Lindsey Scannapieco is the founder of Scout , an urban design and development practice with a radically different approach to city development — she listens to buildings and lets them tell her what they want to be, treating existing urban infrastructure as an asset rather than a liability. In this episode, host Kate Gasparro and Lindsey explore the anatomy of an impact development deal versus a traditional one: structuring for public benefit, underwriting community value that takes years to materialize, and why reusing what a city already has is one of the most sustainable, resilient ways to build vibrant neighborhoods. They also talk about the five-day "funeral" Scout held for a beloved arts institution, and the lessons carrying forward into the Village of Industry and Art — born from the closure of the University of the Arts. This episode is for the real estate developers and investors who suspect impact and returns don't have to be a tradeoff — and want the evidence. It's for city and public-sector leaders wrestling with vacant institutional buildings, shuttered schools, and distressed civic assets. It's for architects, planners, and preservationists drawn to adaptive reuse. And it's for the community-minded builders, small-scale and incremental developers, and mission-driven entrepreneurs who want to create vibrant neighborhoods without pricing out the people already there. Resources: Eight Years in the Making:The Bok Building (Scout) Becoming Bok: From Decommissioned School to South Philly’s Center of Creative Cool (Philly Mag) Leaving New York to Find the American Dream in Philadelphia (NYTimes) Scout gives Philadelphia’s historic buildings a creative second life (Knight Foundation) Bok comes to Broad Street (Philadelphia Citizen)

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  Building Better Cities

  Can Impact Investing Redefine Urban Development? (with Brian Murray)

  Jun 24, 202645 min

  What does it actually take to invest in a neighborhood — not just a building — and get it right? In this episode, Brian Murray , CEO and co-founder of SHIFT Capital , takes us inside 15 years of community development projects that started with a few neglected industrial buildings in Kensington, Philadelphia and evolved into a national impact investment platform. Brian shares how SHIFT's "Whole Neighborhood" approach to urban development differs from traditional real estate — pooling investors across asset types so that loss leaders, small storefronts, and anchor projects can work together as a single ecosystem. He walks through the creation of J-Centrel , a 110-unit adaptive reuse project with a built-in civic engagement program, and how its planned exit into the Kensington Corridor Trust — the country's first community-owned perpetual purpose trust — became a national model for equitable city development. We also get into the harder truths: why SHIFT's first fund wasn't a home run, why capital is difficult to raise even for low-risk affordable housing deals, and why Brian believes the impact real estate field is great at talking to each other but terrible at communicating with the communities they serve. Whether you're a developer, an urban planner, or someone who cares about sustainable cities and community-driven infrastructure, this conversation lays out what it really looks like to invest in people and place — and what it costs when you get the timing, scale, or density wrong. Resources: Creating high-opportunity neighborhoods: Lessons from HOPE VI (Brookings) The New Street Fight: how SHIFT Capital might help make Kensington a model of the right type of private investment (The Philadelphia Citizen) This Apartment Building Gives You a Break on the Rent for Volunteering (Philly Mag) Eight months after Kensington’s disaster declaration, progress is tempered by the realities of the opioid crisis (Philadelphia Inquirer) Affordable Housing and Community Developing in Impact Investing (Columbia Business School) Thanks for listening to Building Better Cities! If you'd like to stay connected, don't forget to Subscribe and Follow. You can find all our archived newsletters and podcasts right here. Want to get in touch? Just email the team at kate@buildingbettercities.com .

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  Building Better Cities

  Building Codes Are Political. We Just Don't Talk About Them. (with Ed Mendoza)

  Jun 10, 202636 min

  The zoning debate is about what we build and for whom . The building code is supposed to be about how we build it. But the "how" has a way of quietly dictating the "what" and "whom" — making the building code just as political and just as consequential to our cities as anything that happens at a planning commission. In this episode, host Kate Gasparro talks with Eduardo Mendoza , Policy Manager at the Metropolitan Abundance Project and California YIMBY , about the silent rulebook shaping nearly every piece of city infrastructure around you. They cover what building codes actually are and where they come from, why an American elevator costs three times as much as a European one, and how requirements like double staircases and sprinkler thresholds quietly kill the small multifamily buildings that make for more sustainable cities. The conversation digs into how outdated rules are slowing the shift toward sustainable infrastructure and walkable, mid-rise neighborhoods, and what reforms — from single-stair buildings to performance-based codes — could change about the development landscape. They close on the harder question: who actually has the power to rewrite the code governing building infrastructure across the country, and on what timeline change is realistic. If you care about housing affordability, sustainable cities, or the future of how we build, this is an episode worth your time. Resources: North America’s Elevator Problem (About Here) The American Elevator Explains Why Housing Costs Have Skyrocketed (NYTimes) The hidden double standards driving our housing crisis (Vox) Decades-Old Zoning and Building Codes are Responsible for Our Housing Choices (Common Edge) Your city legalized triplexes. The building code said no. (Congress for New Urbanism) Why single-stair reform leads to more livable, adaptable infill (Congress for New Urbanism) Thanks for listening to Building Better Cities! If you'd like to stay connected, don't forget to Subscribe and Follow. You can find all our archived newsletters and podcasts right here . Want to get in touch? Just email the team at kate@buildingbettercities.com .

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