April 22, 2022
Let's talk about small-scale real estate development.
The age-old dilemma lives strong today: how do you grow and evolve a neighborhood without pushing out the residents and businesses that made it attractive in the first place? Even the most well-intentioned large-scale developments, which often bring with them street-level improvements, new plazas, benches, and trees, transform the character of the neighborhood so dramatically that a new crop of folks (higher-paying folks) start to move in.
Who tends to care most about existing residents and businesses in any given neighborhood? The actual community members who call it their home, whose children go to local schools. What if there was a system in place to empower these local leaders to become their towns' real estate developers? Could there be a "y-combinator" for development that helps smart, ambitious locals break through the glass ceilings of the RE world?
//
MUST-READS
Inside San Francisco’s $1 million bet on female construction workers // FastCompany
Tishman Speyer launches $100M proptech fund // The Real Deal
As baby boomers retire, developers bet urban senior living will take off // WSJ
Framlab architects propose lighter-than-air buildings that hover over cities // The Byte
Crypto millionaires are pouring money into Central America to build their own cities // MIT Technology Review
It's time for a net zero building boom // Bloomberg
//
IDEA SPOTLIGHT
Built Robotics
Built Robotics is on a mission to build autonomous construction machinery that will be better for the environment, more cost effective, and safer for the humans managing it. Rather than building the entire machine themselves, they create "exosystems" that can be added on to existing diggers and excavators. Their concept: "Autonomy represents an opportunity to put new tools in the hands of skilled workers and accelerate construction with the digital technology that has revolutionized manufacturing, agriculture, and other industries. At the same time, new tools will attract new talent, while easing the physical strain of construction for older workers."
