Speaker 1: Yesterday we talked about Tesla, the company leading the race
Speaker 1: to replace polluting combustion engine cars. Today, an even more
Speaker 1: radical idea, what if we remove cars from our day
Speaker 1: to day lives all together, and not just to be green,
Speaker 1: but to be free of the hassle and cost of
Speaker 1: a car centric existence. Bloomberg's Era Boodwet writes about one
Speaker 1: place that's trying to do just that. It's a car
Speaker 1: free apartment community under construction in Tempe, Arizona, and it's
Speaker 1: designed around walking, biking, and public transit.
Speaker 2: I think this can be something that is preferable, that
Speaker 2: this is a better way to live that you save
Speaker 2: on all the expenses of an automobile and enjoy all
Speaker 2: the things that come with being a pedestrian and using
Speaker 2: public transit.
Speaker 1: I'm West Kosova today on the big tag no Parking
Speaker 1: any Time.
Speaker 3: Hey Iira, how's it going good.
Speaker 1: I've been looking forward to talking to you about this
Speaker 1: really interesting story. Why did you write it?
Speaker 2: I was interested in this development from the first time
Speaker 2: I heard of it. First of all, because I'm from Arizona.
Speaker 2: I went to high school in Phoenix, and it struck
Speaker 2: me as kind of crazy as a place to begin
Speaker 2: a project of car free living, Phoenix seemed like maybe
Speaker 2: exactly the wrong place, and that made it interesting, and
Speaker 2: I think maybe it was partly what they were trying
Speaker 2: to prove that you could do it anywhere. And also selfishly,
Speaker 2: I love reporting trips to Arizona because that is where
Speaker 2: my parents still are, so I get to go visit
Speaker 2: them while I'm working.
Speaker 1: You said that it's seemed like a strange place to
Speaker 1: put it in the middle of Arizona. Why is that?
Speaker 1: Why is Arizona such a strange place next and sunny warm?
Speaker 1: You think you could walk easily.
Speaker 2: Like a lot of American cities in the Sun Belt,
Speaker 2: it is built for drivers. The public transit system is
Speaker 2: kind of a last resort. It's largely for people who
Speaker 2: can't afford a car. Nine out of ten households have
Speaker 2: a car, and it's designed to go from place to
Speaker 2: place in a car. And so while that is somewhat changing,
Speaker 2: and there are pockets in areas that are a bit
Speaker 2: more walkable, it is not a city that you would
Speaker 2: place high on the list of walkability.
Speaker 1: You talk about the heat, there is one reason where
Speaker 1: people always want to be in an air conditioned environment,
Speaker 1: like where they are and in between where're they are exactly.
Speaker 2: And you know, the automobile is driving climate change for
Speaker 2: a lot of people. It's one of the biggest sources
Speaker 2: of our carbon emissions, and it is a refuge. You know,
Speaker 2: this is one of the ironies of climate change. In
Speaker 2: so many cases, the things that we do that make
Speaker 2: it worse are also the things that we do to
Speaker 2: adapt to it and deal with it.
Speaker 1: So you went out there to see whether we're doing.
Speaker 1: Tell us about this development. It's called could de Sac.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's cul de Sac Tempe.
Speaker 2: So. Tempe is a suburb of Phoenix. It's where Arizona
Speaker 2: State University is. It's part of the contiguous Valley of
Speaker 2: the Sun, that big metropolis there. And they I've put
Speaker 2: this on a seventeen acre plot next to a light
Speaker 2: rail stop. So a few years ago Phoenix started building
Speaker 2: out a light rail that runs from Phoenix to Tempe
Speaker 2: to Mesa. And it's not a complete system. It's not
Speaker 2: like the subway where you can get anywhere you need
Speaker 2: to go in New York City.
Speaker 3: It's kind of just a spine.
Speaker 2: It's a useful way to get to major locations, the airport,
Speaker 2: downtown and so forth. They picked this spot right on
Speaker 2: the light rail in Tempe that was underdeveloped.
Speaker 3: It was mostly a.
Speaker 2: Dirt lot, and they thought, we'll put here a community
Speaker 2: for people who will not have parking spots. If you
Speaker 2: are a resident there, you don't get a parking spot
Speaker 2: and you have to promise not to park in the neighborhood.
Speaker 2: And instead they want to help you use the light rail,
Speaker 2: ride your bike, ride haile, do all the other alternative
Speaker 2: ways of getting around. And they think that this can
Speaker 2: be a better way to live, even in Phoenix.
Speaker 1: And who are the people behind it?
Speaker 2: So this was founded by Ryan Johnson and Jeff Barns.
Speaker 2: They were roommates at the University of Arizona. They both
Speaker 2: grew up in the Phoenix area. Ryan Johnson was on
Speaker 2: the founding team at open Door, which is the house
Speaker 2: flipping company that buys houses in mass and thinks that
Speaker 2: they can figure out the price using data so that
Speaker 2: they can make an offer just below market value and
Speaker 2: sell it just above or make a margin that way.
Speaker 2: He was working there and one of the things he
Speaker 2: noticed while working there, as he puts it, was that
Speaker 2: people really valued walkability in their neighborhood because they were
Speaker 2: constantly looking at the data about what people want in
Speaker 2: a home and in a neighborhood, and he saw that
Speaker 2: people didn't outright say I want walkability. They didn't use
Speaker 2: those terms, but they said I want a cute neighborhood.
Speaker 3: And what cute meant was where.
Speaker 2: I could walk to a coffee shop, where I could
Speaker 2: walk to a grocer, where I could walk to a park.
Speaker 2: And so what they were really describing was walkability, and
Speaker 2: that this was something that when you looked at how
Speaker 2: often people said they wanted it and how often it
Speaker 2: was available, there was a huge mismatch. And so they
Speaker 2: decided that they were going to try to build from
Speaker 2: scratch walkable neighborhoods, and they were going to start with Tempe.
Speaker 2: They had to go to the city of Tempe and
Speaker 2: convince them to let them build without parking because in Tempe,
Speaker 2: as in many US cities, there are parking minimums that
Speaker 2: demand if you're going to be putting bedrooms in, you
Speaker 2: need to put parking spaces so that people aren't parking
Speaker 2: on the nearby streets.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because we started out talking about how cars
Speaker 1: are big drivers of climate change, which we now, but
Speaker 1: it seems like The idea behind this development wasn't kind
Speaker 1: of save the planet so much as it was giving
Speaker 1: people the lifestyle they wanted, which just happens to coincide
Speaker 1: with reducing emissions.
Speaker 3: The way they.
Speaker 2: Talk about it is it is mission driven. When they
Speaker 2: were selling it to the city, they did say this
Speaker 2: is a way to help people reduce their carbon emissions,
Speaker 2: but they don't want this to be just for people
Speaker 2: who have a kind of missionary zeal or who are
Speaker 2: really interested in cutting out the carbon emissions in their lives.
Speaker 2: They think this can be something that is preferable, that
Speaker 2: this is a better way to live, that you save
Speaker 2: on all the expenses of an automobile and enjoy all
Speaker 2: the things that come with being a pedestrian and using
Speaker 2: public transit, and that you get a bunch of things
Speaker 2: in the housing itself the way that they've designed it
Speaker 2: that you would not be able to get if you're
Speaker 2: dedicating all the space to parking garages.
Speaker 1: And who are the people who want to move in?
Speaker 1: How many are there so far?
Speaker 2: When I was out there in late May, they had
Speaker 2: sixteen units open, so this is sort of their soft opening.
Speaker 3: They're going to have about one hundred more coming by
Speaker 3: the end of.
Speaker 2: This year, and so it was really the early movers
Speaker 2: that were there. I spoke to a couple who'd already
Speaker 2: moved in, a guy who's moving in in the fall.
Speaker 2: The founder, Ryan Johnson, co founder, is also one of
Speaker 2: the people living there. They're all in a single building
Speaker 2: that's open, that's going to have a grocery store just
Speaker 2: beneath it. So some of the buildings are excuse some
Speaker 2: are pure residential.
Speaker 3: One of them was.
Speaker 2: A woman, Vanessa Fox, who was living in Phoenix and
Speaker 2: wanted to maybe move to San Francisco or New York
Speaker 2: City because she wanted to live without a car.
Speaker 3: She didn't like.
Speaker 2: Driving, and the pandemic came. She started working full time
Speaker 2: remote and she heard about this development and she said, Oh,
Speaker 2: I can live that lifestyle that I'm looking for without
Speaker 2: leaving Phoenix, and so she's moved in there. Another woman
Speaker 2: came all the way from Pennsylvania, Sarah Joy. She heard
Speaker 2: about the concept at an event, an online event where
Speaker 2: talking about social entrepreneurship. Somebody from cul Deesac was on it,
Speaker 2: and she was just sold on this idea because she
Speaker 2: had lived elsewhere Sweden, Korea, Moldova with the Peace Corps
Speaker 2: and lived without a car, and she really liked that.
Speaker 2: She liked the serendipity of it, she liked the lifestyle,
Speaker 2: and so she thought, oh, I can get that back.
Speaker 2: And she's another person working remotely full time. So she said,
Speaker 2: why not, I'll go out there. The weather's nice, and
Speaker 2: then you know, turned out she got there at a
Speaker 2: time when the weather was not so nice. But she
Speaker 2: is so far happy with what she's found. Broadly speaking,
Speaker 2: it's mostly sort of pre and post family that is
Speaker 2: probably going to be you know, sort of school age
Speaker 2: kids would be tough or even toddlers necessarily in this
Speaker 2: kind of arrangement, especially in Phoenix, So there aren't a
Speaker 2: ton of three bedrooms floor plans in their setup. And
Speaker 2: it's working professionals who maybe have yet to start a family.
Speaker 2: And then maybe people like this retiree Bob Schiffeur that
Speaker 2: I spoke with, who is empty nest and looking for
Speaker 2: a place to spend the sunset.
Speaker 1: And are they looking to create like a very diverse community.
Speaker 3: Tempe is really interesting.
Speaker 2: Tempe has the university there's on a state university as
Speaker 2: sort of its core driver of its economy in downtown Tempe,
Speaker 2: and this is not too far from that. It's on
Speaker 2: the skirts, so I suspect you will get grad students
Speaker 2: and maybe even professors. They I think want all comers.
Speaker 2: You know, they have to of course take all applicants,
Speaker 2: it's part of fair housing. But they are looking for
Speaker 2: a diversity people, and I think there's no reason to
Speaker 2: think they won't be able to do that. Right around
Speaker 2: there are neighborhoods that are pretty well established, old neighborhoods
Speaker 2: with a real mix of Latino and white populations. And
Speaker 2: then the immedia environment has kind of been run down
Speaker 2: and was starting to enter blight, which is partly why
Speaker 2: Tempe was willing to try this experimental thing on that site.
Speaker 1: So can you describe what this community looks like, because
Speaker 1: it really does make a difference when you don't have
Speaker 1: to have cars and parking and driveways, all these sorts
Speaker 1: of things in the way they were able to put
Speaker 1: it together and arrange the buildings.
Speaker 2: There was a plan before cul Deesat got there to
Speaker 2: do a very traditional three towers with parking garages attached
Speaker 2: them on this same lot. That's partly how they were
Speaker 2: able to get this project going, as somebody had already
Speaker 2: identified this lot for development and even gotten approved for development,
Speaker 2: and they took the land from them because they decided
Speaker 2: they didn't want to do that after all, and so
Speaker 2: they took that plan and switched it out and made
Speaker 2: their own.
Speaker 3: And when you.
Speaker 2: Take away the parking garages, you're basically able to get
Speaker 2: in the same number of bedrooms. You know, they're thinking
Speaker 2: maybe a thousand people will live there when this is
Speaker 2: all done, but instead of space for parking, you have
Speaker 2: a lot more green space. And they have set these
Speaker 2: up as three story walk ups that are not necessarily
Speaker 2: arranged totally symmetrically. They have these odd angles that create
Speaker 2: these nooks and crannies that help provide shade.
Speaker 3: And every pod.
Speaker 2: Of sort of eight six, seven, eight nine buildings is
Speaker 2: around an interior courtyard that will be shared among residents
Speaker 2: and that those will be sort of gated access, and
Speaker 2: then there are outside of each pod there are public
Speaker 2: walkways where there will be coffee shop, bike shop, there's
Speaker 2: a restaurant and public events. So that's sort of a
Speaker 2: mix of public and private. And they've done it with
Speaker 2: the heat in mind. So the buildings are white stucco
Speaker 2: and they don't use any asphalt. There is a small
Speaker 2: parking lot for visitors, people who come to the retail,
Speaker 2: people who are visiting residents.
Speaker 3: That's brick, not asphalt.
Speaker 2: They're doing everything they can to sort of reduce the
Speaker 2: exposure to heat, and these narrow passageways that they creator
Speaker 2: meant to tunnel breezes. The master planner on the site
Speaker 2: calls the style that they used Mikinos Desert Modern, So
Speaker 2: it's inspired by kind of Mediterranean Old World and it
Speaker 2: does look that way, you know, it does look like
Speaker 2: maybe you've stepped into a version of Greece or Morocco
Speaker 2: in the middle of Phoenix.
Speaker 1: So what does it cost to rent there? Is it
Speaker 1: more expensive to live there than it is in other
Speaker 1: places in the area.
Speaker 2: They are roughly in line with the market at the moment.
Speaker 2: You know, a one bedroom is around fourteen hundred. Last
Speaker 2: I checked up to about three thousand a month for
Speaker 2: a three bedroom. And in poking around, I walked over
Speaker 2: to a just a regular old apartment complex, like a
Speaker 2: couple doors down on Apache Boulevard where this isn't Tempe,
Speaker 2: and there's a building there where a one bedroom is
Speaker 2: about thirteen hundred, and you know, it's just a regular
Speaker 2: old apartment building, so they are not charging a huge
Speaker 2: amount more than you can find in that area where
Speaker 2: there's also just plenty of building going on at the moment.
Speaker 2: And in addition to your living space, with your rent,
Speaker 2: you get this basket of transportation benefits, including a free
Speaker 2: pass to the Valley Metro that bus and light rail system,
Speaker 2: discounts on lift, ride hailing, on bird scooters, and moving services,
Speaker 2: and they have an evy fleet on site that you
Speaker 2: can rent by the hour or the day. You know
Speaker 2: that rent also is probably you should know, includes more
Speaker 2: than just the space to.
Speaker 1: Live after the break. Why is it so hard to
Speaker 1: get rid of parking spaces? Hiray? You mentioned earlier that
Speaker 1: cities are so built around car culture that it was
Speaker 1: kind of novel just the concept of building an entire
Speaker 1: apartment community that didn't focus around cars.
Speaker 2: In tempi as in many cities, there are these things
Speaker 2: called parking minimums, and these are a really big bugaboo
Speaker 2: among urbanists now because they think they perpetuate car dominance
Speaker 2: in cities. By forcing developers to include parking, you make
Speaker 2: it so that you perpetuate the fact that cars will
Speaker 2: be the mode of transit for everybody, and don't allow
Speaker 2: for more sustainable modes of development to get built. So
Speaker 2: they had to go to the city and say, we
Speaker 2: would like you to zero out the parking minimums for
Speaker 2: this development, and we believe that we can make it
Speaker 2: work through the way that we design it, through its location,
Speaker 2: and through the other transit benefits that we're going to
Speaker 2: offer residents there. And the city agreed to it. It
Speaker 2: was a little bit contentious, but ultimately, I think because
Speaker 2: they were in a site where there wasn't much development happening,
Speaker 2: they said, let's give this a shot.
Speaker 1: And you right that the people behind this project, they
Speaker 1: went before the Development Commission and they really had to
Speaker 1: overcome a lot of skepticism and kind of promise them
Speaker 1: that this was going to work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was skepticism, and the main question was this
Speaker 2: all sounds great, but what if it doesn't lease. You know,
Speaker 2: what are you going to do if you can't find
Speaker 2: enough people who want to live this way or who
Speaker 2: will pay market rate for these apartments. And their answer
Speaker 2: was essentially, look, we're going to do this in phases,
Speaker 2: and so if we figure out after phase one or
Speaker 2: phase two that it's just not working, then we can
Speaker 2: switch it up. We'll come back to you and we
Speaker 2: will say, hey, you know, theoretically they could throw a
Speaker 2: parking crush in the last few acres if they need to,
Speaker 2: or make a different plan, and that was enough to
Speaker 2: get over those concerns. And you know that is still
Speaker 2: open question. They are still in the early parts of this.
Speaker 2: A lot of the development remains a dirt lot. If
Speaker 2: it doesn't work, then you could see this become five
Speaker 2: ten years from now just another apartment complex and tempe.
Speaker 1: But when it got that approval, yeah, a lot of
Speaker 1: attention right away, especially among urban planners and academics, that
Speaker 1: this was a really big deal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because they became the poster child for this movement
Speaker 2: to abolish parking minimums, which is growing, and there are
Speaker 2: cities that have just said, we're not going to make
Speaker 2: this a must. We're going to take every development as
Speaker 2: a one off and decide what's rational and look at
Speaker 2: how they plan to deal with transportation needs.
Speaker 3: And you have seen even in the Phoenix.
Speaker 2: Area what they call transit oriented development where it's like
Speaker 2: we're near the light rail, will go lower than the
Speaker 2: established amount of parking that you typically need for this
Speaker 2: many bedrooms, and sometimes those work and sometimes they really don't.
Speaker 2: Sometimes people put in a restaurant and they say, we're
Speaker 2: near the light rail, we don't need our own parking lot.
Speaker 2: People are going to come to us on public transit.
Speaker 2: And then you find out three months later when the
Speaker 2: restaurant opens that the people are parking all over the
Speaker 2: surrounding neighborhoods, and the neighbors are really upset, and you
Speaker 2: wind up going and buying and putting in a surface lot.
Speaker 2: So parking is just this really contentious part of all
Speaker 2: development right now. But this got a lot of attention
Speaker 2: because it was the first time that TEMP said we'll
Speaker 2: go to zero. We're not going to have a parking
Speaker 2: minimum for this development. And I think that kind of
Speaker 2: absolutist approach and the fact that they were first made
Speaker 2: them really notable.
Speaker 1: The other thing, too, is Arizona is just unbearably hot.
Speaker 1: Of course, we're going through a whole big heat wave everywhere,
Speaker 1: but man, are they bearing the brunt of it? Is
Speaker 1: that an advertisement for this place or is it something
Speaker 1: that will make people think twice about not being able
Speaker 1: to get into a cool car.
Speaker 2: I think that it will cut both ways. I mean,
Speaker 2: broadly speaking, you see the beginnings of real estate investors
Speaker 2: looking at Phoenix and going, We'll wait a second, we're
Speaker 2: really going to be able to supply water. There is
Speaker 2: this really a livable place long term? In the short term,
Speaker 2: like a lot of cities, it's got more people looking
Speaker 2: for housing than it has houses, and so there's demand.
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, whether it's better or worse
Speaker 2: to live this way is what they're trying to prove
Speaker 2: right now. I think their idea is that, look, you
Speaker 2: can do a thousand and if this one works, maybe
Speaker 2: ten thousand at a time. Of people like this, and
Speaker 2: it's sort of an incremental change, and this is also
Speaker 2: a way to create a different kind of housing that
Speaker 2: we think is highly desirable. That people want to live
Speaker 2: this walkable lifestyle and they just need someone to help
Speaker 2: them do it.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that other cities started really looking at this.
Speaker 1: What other places are considering similar sorts of things.
Speaker 2: Minneapolis and Arbor have done away with their blanket minimums,
Speaker 2: and there are a lot of other cities that. You know,
Speaker 2: it really depends what was the rule in the first
Speaker 2: place and how much do you want to tweak it.
Speaker 2: But if you look in Portland and cities all over
Speaker 2: the US, you are seeing parking minimums be reconsidered in
Speaker 2: one way or another.
Speaker 1: You mentioned earlier that people who live there aren't allowed
Speaker 1: to park, you know, anywhere in the area, so it's
Speaker 1: not like you can't kind of like hide a car.
Speaker 1: But they actually have to do more than that to
Speaker 1: meet the requirements. Is that right?
Speaker 2: They have to promise that they will disclose any car
Speaker 2: that they own or control or purchase while they're there,
Speaker 2: because they want to know what the license plate and
Speaker 2: the make of that car so that they can keep
Speaker 2: track of anybody who is parking on the neighboring streets
Speaker 2: and kind of trying to break the rules. They promise
Speaker 2: to help monitor the area around the site for that.
Speaker 2: I think mostly it will be self policing because they
Speaker 2: are selling this so much to people who want to
Speaker 2: try this car free lifestyle that it would be weird
Speaker 2: to move there if you were intending to park. Whether
Speaker 2: there's slippage over time would be interesting. It was one
Speaker 2: of the people I spoke with, Bob schaff for the
Speaker 2: retiree who's going to be moving in in October. He
Speaker 2: has a truck with a camper on the back, and
Speaker 2: he told me, I'm going to keep it for a
Speaker 2: lot little while. I'm not telling them where I'm going
Speaker 2: to park it. You know it's going to be far away,
Speaker 2: but I just want to make sure this works. Ultimately,
Speaker 2: he decided he is going to sell it when he
Speaker 2: moves in, but for a while he was not totally sure,
Speaker 2: and he was thinking, I'm going to just have this
Speaker 2: car park somewhere in the meantime. So it's not that
Speaker 2: you can't own a car, it's that you can't store
Speaker 2: it really anywhere near the site.
Speaker 3: It would be really inconvenient to do that.
Speaker 1: When we come back. Tempe's the first to do this,
Speaker 1: but the big question is will other cities follow. I
Speaker 1: wrote you said earlier that there's a handful of people
Speaker 1: who've been able to move in kind of the earliest adopters,
Speaker 1: but a lot of the plays really is yet to
Speaker 1: be built.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, their original schedule was to start moving people
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one, basically, and the pandemic and the
Speaker 2: supply Chaine disruptions and everything that came with that have
Speaker 2: set them back. So they've just had their first move ins.
Speaker 2: They want to do their grand opening, as they call it,
Speaker 2: this fall, and they're going to have one hundred more
Speaker 2: units coming this year, and then over the next couple
Speaker 2: of years a couple hundred more in the final fruition.
Speaker 2: You know, this is supposed to be about seven hundred units,
Speaker 2: and that's years away.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: They broke ground in November of twenty nineteen. So much
Speaker 2: has happened since then, as we all know. But the
Speaker 2: climate for housing development in the market where they are
Speaker 2: has gotten a lot tougher. It's tougher to borrow for building.
Speaker 2: There's a glut of new constructions, so the value of
Speaker 2: new apartments has come down, and the interest rates at
Speaker 2: which you would have to borrow have gone up. So
Speaker 2: they facing a lot of challenges and bringing this to
Speaker 2: completion and to be what they originally envisioned.
Speaker 1: You said earlier that this has become the kind of
Speaker 1: poster child for this car free way of living. Are
Speaker 1: there other developments like this anywhere in the country? Is
Speaker 1: this the only one?
Speaker 2: There are other places that do infill projects and that
Speaker 2: sort of specialize in walkability.
Speaker 1: What is infil so.
Speaker 2: Infil is when instead of building on a lot that
Speaker 2: wasn't housing before, you know, whether that was just an
Speaker 2: open lot or it was being used for something else
Speaker 2: on the outskirts of a city. That's typically how you
Speaker 2: get suburban sprawl, and how places like Phoenix have developed
Speaker 2: for decades is primarily you keep going outward and then
Speaker 2: you find that a lot of what you're leaving behind
Speaker 2: in the center of the cities sort of can fall
Speaker 2: into disrepair, or that those markets can become depressed, that
Speaker 2: housing stock gets old, and so infill is when you
Speaker 2: reverse that and you go back and you say we're
Speaker 2: going to build close to the center of the city,
Speaker 2: and we're going to rebuild there, and we're going to
Speaker 2: find pockets of space there to do projects where we
Speaker 2: create housing, and that is something that you're seeing in
Speaker 2: Phoenix and elsewhere more of that, and those in projects
Speaker 2: have to think about parking really deliberately. It's not just
Speaker 2: here's your driveway next to your detached house or here's
Speaker 2: the garage. They're space limited or they're near transit. It
Speaker 2: cost them twenty thousand dollars a spot roughly to put
Speaker 2: up a parking garage. So if they can save on that,
Speaker 2: they would love to. But then they also have to
Speaker 2: find people who want to move in. So in terms
Speaker 2: of you know, marketing themselves, as car free, as building
Speaker 2: car free neighborhoods from scratch, which is how Cold Sac
Speaker 2: puts it. I haven't seen that exact approach elsewhere, but
Speaker 2: there are certainly lots of other developers who are saying,
Speaker 2: we're building walkable developments, we're doing infill, we're focusing on
Speaker 2: transit oriented development. You're seeing it in Phoenix. You're seeing it,
Speaker 2: really and any city that has kind of started to
Speaker 2: reach the limits of going out, you're seeing it even
Speaker 2: in cold weather cities, you know, Milwaukee and elsewhere that
Speaker 2: people want what New Yorkers have in many cases are
Speaker 2: people in San Francias in some cases have, which is
Speaker 2: a life that doesn't depend on a car.
Speaker 1: And the difference there though, of course, in cities is
Speaker 1: you walking on the street there's a lot of restaurants
Speaker 1: and businesses and all kinds of things going on, Whereas
Speaker 1: this place, you know, there's a restaurant, right, and there's
Speaker 1: a market, a gim a coffee house. Is that enough
Speaker 1: to sustain that kind of community where you don't want
Speaker 1: to get in the car and go all the way
Speaker 1: into Phoenix for more variety.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that is going to be the real
Speaker 2: trick so they have tried to put on site everything
Speaker 2: that they think residents will need so they don't have
Speaker 2: to leave as often. You not only have to have
Speaker 2: the people who live there frequenting those places, but for
Speaker 2: those businesses to survive, it's not enough for the residents
Speaker 2: to be the only customers. They need people coming from
Speaker 2: all around the neighborhood. And where they are do they
Speaker 2: have the density of sort of pedestrianism. Is the light
Speaker 2: rail enough? Will enough people come to make that a go?
Speaker 2: And the more projects like it that you have around,
Speaker 2: the more density you have, the easier it is to do.
Speaker 2: But they are sort of pioneers. The neighborhood that they're in.
Speaker 2: To the south is a ups shipping center. To one
Speaker 2: side is an old hotel being used as a homeless
Speaker 2: shelter by the city. To the other side is a
Speaker 2: tire shop. So it's not like you can just stroll
Speaker 2: outside and be in the kind of West Village walkable
Speaker 2: neighborhood that people might imagine. So they are definitely trying
Speaker 2: to make a go of it in a place where
Speaker 2: it's not all there yet. That said, hop on the
Speaker 2: light rail and you're in, you know, the downtown Tempee area,
Speaker 2: which is kind of that walkable neighborhood full of bars
Speaker 2: and restaurants in less than ten minutes.
Speaker 3: You know, if you catch it right.
Speaker 1: Or you're from Arizona, you spent time there walking around,
Speaker 1: taking a look at the places themselves and the community.
Speaker 1: Is it nice? Would you want to live there?
Speaker 2: I think if I were at that phase of life.
Speaker 2: I have two kids now, I can't quite imagine making
Speaker 2: this work with an eight year od than an eleven
Speaker 2: year old, but in that phase of life, right, if
Speaker 2: I'm a grad student and I live in the area,
Speaker 2: this is something I would definitely consider. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of ways in which I could see this being really attractive.
Speaker 2: But certainly it's less convenient than anytime I want to
Speaker 2: go anywhere, I step outside, I get in my own car,
Speaker 2: and I go there without having to make any other
Speaker 2: planning or thought to it. And that is the default
Speaker 2: mode in Phoenix, and that is what they're competing against.
Speaker 1: Hira, Thanks so much for coming on the show, Thanks
Speaker 1: for having me, Thanks for listening to us here at
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