SFU City

Chris Leinberger - a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, a professor of urban planning at the University of Michigan, and a real-estate developer - will be speaking in Vancouver on April 25 as part of the Bombardier Foundation/City Program “Shifting Gears” series.   Details here. 

He has an article in the March Atlantic magazine on “The Next Slum”:

Strange days are upon the residents of many a suburban cul-de-sac. Once-tidy yards have become overgrown, as the houses they front have gone vacant. Signs of physical and social disorder are spreading. …

But the story of vacant suburban homes and declining suburban neighborhoods did not begin with the crisis, and will not end with it. A structural change is under way in the housing market—a major shift in the way many Americans want to live and work. It has shaped the current downturn, steering some of the worst problems away from the cities and toward the suburban fringes. And its effects will be felt more strongly, and more broadly, as the years pass. Its ultimate impact on the suburbs, and the cities, will be profound.

Full article here.

Herb teaches our popular (and long-running) course, “Real Estate Development from the Inside Out.”

As part of his class materials, he’s sending out a slide show with his choice of some of the amazing buildings going up these days.  Here are two we hadn’t seen before:

 The Gazprom HQ in St. Petersburg, creating loads of controversy

And The Regatta Hotel in Jakarta