Talk of the Town: Overcoming NIMBYism to improve communities

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Spencer Levy
Community engagement is a critical component of getting any new project off the ground. But when it comes to some projects, real estate developers and leaders often confront a familiar brand of opposition. On this episode, managing that dynamic of NIMBYism - not in my backyard. 

Jerry Davis
If you give people the opportunity to have a little bit of a say, their attitude is going to change radically. And then in doing so, you're going to build allies to your project. And there's strength in numbers. 

Spencer Levy
That's Jerry Davis, a former Hollywood producer who now runs Davis Realty, a family firm in Connecticut that was founded by his parents in 1975. Previously, he helped develop such animated movie classics as Toy Story and Ice Age. He's still a producer at heart, Jerry likes to say, but he's simply producing real estate these days. 

Jessica Lall 
I think in cities, especially like Los Angeles, we've seen a need for housing, a need for development, but a big question mark around where that should go. 

Spencer Levy 
And that's Jessica Lall, a Managing Director in CBRE’s Los Angeles office. Jessica oversees business operations in our advisory and transaction services group and has an extensive public policy background to go with her work in real estate. Jessica even ran for mayor of L.A. in 2022, and also manages our Los Angeles government and higher education practice groups. Coming up, perspectives on managing regulations, dealing with resistance to development, building community relationships, and more – overcoming the challenge of NIMBYism and ways of making the whole process more transparent and efficient. I'm Spencer Levy, and that's right now on The Weekly Take. 

Spencer Levy
Welcome to The Weekly Take and I'm delighted this week to be speaking with two experts on what can be a difficult topic. We're joined by my friend and colleague, Jessica Lall, Managing Director at CBRE. Jessica, thanks for coming out. 

Jessica Lall
Great to be here. Thanks, Spencer. 

Spencer Levy
Great to have you. And Jerry Davis, Managing Partner of Davis Realty. 

Jerry Davis 
Thanks, Spencer. I really appreciate you having me on. 

Spencer Levy  
I’m delighted to have you. Let's get right to the heart of the matter. When I talk about real estate, we talk about geopolitical issues, we talk about national issues. But I always say, much like all politics is local, real estate is the most local of all businesses when it comes to the politics that matters most, in the local zoning boards, in the local community. Jerry, what's your perspective on this issue? 

Jerry Davis 
I always say that we build projects by talking about them. What I mean by that is that we as developers imagine something that isn't there and we just talk about it and we talk about it to everybody who will listen until it finally gets built. It's a process of convincing people that something that they can't see can be there and be great. But on the other side of that, you do run into people who have the opposite experience, which is they don't want that particular project. And for them, they're actually having the same experience. They're seeing something that isn't there, except for them, what they're seeing is something that's scary. And they have to be taken seriously because as real as something is for a developer, the fear of what that development can be is real for the people who are against it. 

Spencer Levy 
Jessica, your perspective on this issue? 

Jessica Lall 
Yeah, I think, Spencer, you hit on something. The further removed an issue is, the more we can support those issues based on our values or what we perceive to be as beneficial. But the closer they come to home, more of those values may become in direct conflict with one another. And I think in cities especially like Los Angeles, we've seen a need for housing, a need for development, but a big question mark around where that should go. And I think that's part of what we're here to talk about today, is sort of when those values come into conflict with one another, how do we move past them and how do builders, developers be a part of ushering in a process by which we can help people reconcile some of these issues for the betterment of communities and move them out of a place of conflict. And I think the semantics lesson is really important. I know here in L.A. the last few years there's been a push to ban the actual contributions from, quote, developers. We're also a region that's in a major housing crisis, and when you talk about housing builders, the polling and the perception of what those projects are and people behind them has a much more positive connotation to it. So I think we can't neglect the impact that words and sort of deep rooted connotations do carry throughout a process. 

Spencer Levy
So the issue of NIMBYism - not in my backyard-ism - is hardly new. Do you have any historic perspective on how long this issue's been around and why? 

Jerry Davis 
I would just offer this. I think NIMBYism has been around a long time. I can't say exactly for how long, but what's changed is that for those who want to protest things that are happening, it's gotten much easier to do so. It used to be you would actually have to find out when meetings are, what was happening down in town hall and you'd have to go and protest it. And a lot of things were done with that barely being announced. The most famous example being Robert Moses in New York City, who was able to famously tear things down while in the court system, they were saying that he couldn't. And by the time court was adjourned, he already had the bulldozers rolling. So we come from that past, and now we have a world where planning and zoning meetings that control these sorts of things are announced well in advance. Most of those meetings are available on Zoom. People can participate from home, and it's a much more public process, which is great because it certainly makes people more aware, but it also creates more conflict that has to be resolved by builders. 

Spencer Levy 
By the way, for people listening, one of the books I often recommend to folks who are getting in the business is Robert Caro's terrific book, The Power Broker, which, by the way, just had its 50th anniversary, which is the whole story about Robert Moses and what he was able to pull off. And it's a very, I mean, it is an adventure story, both good and bad. The bad is exactly what Jerry laid out. I guess the good is, if you like Jones Beach, you like the Long Island Expressway, you like the Major Deegan, he got big things done. 

Jessica Lall
If I could add one thing, NIMBYism has been around so long, maybe not labeled NIMBYism and I don't think we ever want to label someone a “NIMBY” and it's not a badge of honor that anyone in a community does wear. I think they do believe their concerns are valid and are worth being addressed. But we've seen policies and tools, at least in California, around protecting the environment, be used to protest or call into question projects strongly enough that it slows them down or it prevents someone from actually wanting to even pursue in the first place. But what we have actually seen here in L.A. is a “YIMBY” cohort develop - a Yes In My Backyard. And this group has sort of gotten legs statewide where they are doing more to organize people who are supportive of projects, working collaboratively. So I think it's one of these things where you don't want to overstate opposition, but you also want to make sure you're giving voice to those who maybe don't have the time to show up at hearings, whatnot, to actually voice their support for a project. And I think we've seen organizing done around that, as well. 

Spencer Levy 
Let me turn to a more topical issue here, just for the benefit of our audience. Jessica and Jerry, what are you doing today to try to move forward on this issue? 

Jessica Lall 
Can speak to what we're doing here at CBRE. What we've done is we've launched a regional civic engagement initiative out of our offices here. And what that looks like is we have data, information, and we are basically taking that to our local policymakers, department heads, you name it, to basically gift it to them and say, hey, here's some information about data, employment, housing, you name it, what's going on in your district. We don't have an agenda here. We just want you to have access to high quality, real time information so you can be making a better decision. So you can go out into your districts and be making a case that's based in fact. And I think facts are extremely important. And what that also does is steadily start to build more meaningful relationships and trust over time. We're here to be a partner and we realize we have a role to play, you have a role to play, and we're doing our part. We're encouraging our clients to do their part. And I think if we start to build a more diverse table of stakeholders, we're going to have better outcomes overall. 

Jerry Davis 
What we're going to be doing in our next project is really pulling into, hitting on a lot of the things we've talked about. We're working on a master plan for a new development that would be really hitting that soft middle area, which is reasonably priced homes that will be near town, but they would be more dense than what the single family zoning in that area would allow. So we're going to be going to the town and asking for zoning flexibility. We're going to be going to our neighbors and asking for their input. We're going to be exercising all the things that we've been talking about in order to get it built. And it will include some workforce housing as well. 

Jessica Lall 
Spencer, if I can mention one other thing I know CBRE is doing. We've launched a Shaping Future Cities Initiative and we've been looking at since Covid, what cities are doing of similar size and proportion and what the results of those studies are showing is that mixed use vibrant communities contribute to resilience over time. And I think what we're trying to do is take that information and distribute it again to cities that are large, that are small, to showcase best practices so cities can… you know, not everyone's reinventing the wheel every single time, but can actually learn from each other. So we're helping, through this project, try to facilitate that kind of information sharing. 

Jerry Davis 
We certainly are experiencing here in New England a big housing shortage. One of the questions that people often ask are, well, where are your kids going to live? They can't afford to move here. And it's unfortunately partly a regulatory obstacle and partly having to do with the fear of increased housing and changing neighborhoods. The idea that we can't add this housing because it's going to change the small town feel that we cherish and we don't want to lose. The fact is that aside from those obstacles, we have a lot of regulatory obstacles in Connecticut, where we don't have zoning regulations that allow for buildings that fall outside of the multifamily or the single family home. There's no regulatory definition for garden apartments, the missing middle kinds of housing. Like what Nashville did with tall and skinny houses. There's nothing that allows for us to, in the current regulations, to present ideas that maybe can break through some of this housing shortage. 

Spencer Levy 
So, Jessica, what do you see as some of the challenges facing new housing in Los Angeles? 

Jessica Lall 
Here in L.A., there's a multitude of challenges that we face. And I think the good news is we're becoming more aware and well versed in them. But the first is a massive housing shortage. We have about half a million units shy of what we need to meet today's current demand in L.A county alone. We've seen this is translated into a brain drain. College students we educate here in L.A., but people can't afford a housing unit, so they leave to a different city or a more affordable state. We have an, of course, an extremely large homelessness population, and many would attribute that in large part to the shortage of housing units. Our teachers, our police, firefighters cannot afford to live in the cities that they serve. I think there's a large set of implications that are not beneficial to communities as a result of it. And added in here in California, in L.A., there's just fragmented jurisdiction politically in terms of who sets standards, who sets the goals, and then who's responsible for approving these projects and how up to date are our zoning and planning documents that basically dictate what can be built, which leaves a lot to subjectivity and a lot in elected officials hands, which I think creates some distrust potentially within communities. So these are all some of the challenges that we're up against, but a lot of them are structural. But I think we've seen also very positive examples of how builders, developers work through them collaboratively in the communities and with the political and legislative process to actually get something done and built. And it's, I would argue, on behalf of those projects that we need to be communicating those stories and those wins more effectively and the benefits that they've been having in communities to start to sort of change the narrative around what… and really overcome fear. And Jerry mentioned this. I think the source of a lot of this is fear and it's human psychology 101 in terms of, how do we navigate? So I think we're here in L.A., ground zero for a lot of what we're talking about, and also have some great case studies to show how we can improve and move forward. 

Spencer Levy 
Well, a lot of this comes down to better communication, but a lot of it is regulatory. And the regulatory part of it is something that is solvable. And it's obviously hard to change the law. But nevertheless, there is an expression, as Rahm Emanuel I think coined, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. And what he meant by that is if there is a crisis, you can get stuff done. And I think we have the convergence of two crises right now. One crisis right now is the affordable housing shortage, which you both mentioned, but the other is the crisis of return to office, which is going very poorly in many CBDs. And you put the two together, you've got a potential solution, at least partial solution, to some of these issues. So maybe we have the ability to move the regulatory needle more today than before. Jerry, your point of view? 

Jerry Davis 
Well, that is a great point. The office situation in the suburbs in particular is really difficult and does present a huge opportunity for solving housing issues. But you still run up against the not in my backyard problem. We've had, this year in Stamford, Connecticut, a really interesting case study of two developments in a slightly northern part of the city where office buildings, huge office buildings, are sitting empty, two office parks. One of which was proposing 500 housing units. I think the other was about 345. Neighbors have been really, really against it. One was approved, the 345 unit one and the other has been turned down. But that's just one example. Elsewhere in Connecticut, and I know all over the country, you've got shopping malls where these are big box stores that could be repurposed that are underutilized. They need investment. And it's a huge opportunity if you can get past the regulatory thing. And what Jessica said before is really interesting, which is that the collaboration between government and the private sector, because in my observation, that is the best way to make things happen. But what I've also observed is that a lot of leaders don't want to take a stand. They are afraid of alienating one constituency or another. But when it does happen, you can really make these projects move forward. But it takes leadership from the government. 

Jessica Lall 
Yeah. To build off this, it's interesting because downtown Los Angeles is a unique community within the broader L.A. landscape in that I would say it actually welcomes development, unlike the other–most of the other neighborhoods here in L.A. And I think an example of where we have seen success and perhaps where we're marrying, obviously downtown L.A. has been tremendously hit hard by the lack, you know, the return to office and office space in general. But in the late 1990s, adaptive reuse was really what spurred downtown L.A’s renaissance, regrowth, converting old bank buildings into residential units. And we are seeing a lot of conversation right now and collaboration between our mayor's office, the downtown community, to see how we could potentially look at building strategically. CBRE, Gensler, other companies are participating in a study with the government to identify buildings, and really what price point do we need to be at in order to allow for these conversions? But it's also recognizing that that isn't going to be the silver bullet and we need to be doing a multitude of things. But what we have seen work well is, start somewhere, pilot it, show success, demonstrate success and then try to replicate. And I think in large areas like Los Angeles, you can't do a one size fits all approach. You have to start somewhere, prove the concept, and then try to replicate it out. And I am hopeful that's what we're in the process of, or in the beginning stages of doing here in L.A. at this unique moment that we find ourselves in. 

Spencer Levy 
Jerry, as a movie person or former movie person, you'll appreciate this. There's a famous shot and it's in a lot of movies where somebody is on a hillside overlooking the city of Los Angeles at night and it's all lit up. When it's all low, meaning, when I say low, meaning that the heights of the buildings are all one, maybe two stories. And I say to folks, well, you know why? And they go, what do you mean you know why? Height restrictions. Height restrictions throughout the city, except for certain pockets like downtown L.A. that do not permit you to go higher. And so it creates a great shot, but it creates a great problem because there's nothing more inefficient than sprawl. In terms of use of natural resources, cops, fire people, schools. But if you go vertical, you can concentrate them. Do either of you have a point of view on this on whether it's building out or building up? 

Jessica Lall 
Well, I think in L.A., people fear that kind of density. The Manhattan-ization of our suburbs has been something that I think has fueled a lot of the fear of where their communities are going to go and deteriorate. And so scale does matter. And I don't think you can go from single-family flat to downtown L.A.. And there have been efforts at the state level. Simply, there was a bill last year that passed to allow for the conversion of single family units to build duplexes, accessory dwelling units in the back. And that has even proven to be very, very challenging because people fear, again fear, that their property values will be diminished. But Jerry hit on something. You have to personalize this. When you start talking about where are your children going to live? Or say someone's grandparent wants to move out from another state to be closer to their family and there's nowhere for them to live within an acceptable radius. It starts to hit people in a different way. And I think we have to reframe the story and the reasoning and personalize what we're talking about in a way that overcomes that fear and also take things in bite size and be reasonable about what kind of and what acceptable change are we expecting people to make and take over time? 

Jerry Davis 
I would just add a different perspective, which is the country perspective, the suburban perspective, which is where you talk about height. For us, three stories is pretty big. Four stories is possible with special exception. That's the maximum. And when we built a three story multifamily unit a year and a half ago, and it was fairly controversial, although it's not the tallest, necessarily the tallest building around, it was fairly controversial. And people said, well, who's going to want to live there? And what's interesting is that we are seeing in this part of the world a lot more young people moving in who are more accustomed to an urban setting, who are really loving the idea of the density of downtowns and being able to walk and use the train and not be reliant on two cars for the family. So I actually think that is an area of opportunity in this part of the world where in more densely developed New England downtowns, there's still room for more upward construction. 

Spencer Levy 
So I think there's really two stories here. One is the regulatory environment and the other is the storytelling you tell to the local community to embrace new building. Jessica, what's your point of view of the type of regulatory changes that might be helpful to improve the space. 

Jessica Lall 
In terms of building public trust, giving away more dollars isn't what does that. I think it's giving certainty and over the long haul and clarity on what the process is. Again, that contributes to trust. So we've seen, for example, locally at the city level, the mayor put forward several executive directives to basically streamline and truly create by-right housing if it's subsidized, meets a certain criteria, and upping the threshold for review, which has allowed people to actually build more affordable housing units. Again, what we're trying to incentivize building without giving out any dollars, creating more certainty within the process. And what that starts to do is it also starts to open the door, I think, for communication between, okay, here are other tweaks and regulatory changes that we can put into place that would further incentivize the type of housing development that we're trying to see. So I think it is a virtuous momentum wheel, once you start it and get it going and people start to see results come in their lifetime, it starts to have a positive impact. And I think if you talk to any developer or at least those that operate here in Los Angeles, they're ready to play by a set of rules, they just need clarity on what those rules need to be. And they do not want the goalposts moved somewhere random at the fourth quarter. It doesn't work. And that is in large part why we've seen a lot of people decide, hey, I'm not comfortable building here just because I have no idea what set of rules I need to play by to yield what outcomes I'm looking for. 

Jerry Davis 
Well, one of the things that I mentioned before I think really comes into play, which is allowing the regs on the local zoning level to allow for different types of housing than the simple multifamily versus single family homes. There's a considerable spectrum in between those two extremes that are just not specified in the regs and would allow for more flexibility. Jessica mentioned ADUs, which are a really big improvement in this part of the world. And I think we're seeing a fair amount of that actually get built. So that's an improvement. But that missing middle really provides a lot of opportunity in a suburban setting, especially, I would add, where we have constraints of traffic and health code. And in most of this area, everything is on septic, local septic rather than sewers. So you can't have the density that we were talking about before. You can't go higher than a certain height of building because you've got to actually provide septic for all of that, which takes up a lot of your land. But one, actually I just wanted to highlight one really, really positive regulatory change that happened in Connecticut two years ago. And I can't speak for other places, but the laws regarding brownfield remediation changed in the state to significantly reduce the liability for a buyer coming in and buying a brownfield site and developing it, which had previously resulted in dozens of brownfield sites all over the state just lying fallow because nobody was willing to take on that risk. So the liability has been reduced and there's more federal funding available for all those sites. So I would say it's a really good example of where legislation can have a really positive effect. 

Spencer Levy
So let me interject for just a moment. For folks who are not familiar with the term brownfield, what a brownfield is is a site that has environmental contamination as defined by mostly federal, but also state and local agencies. And the challenge with brownfields is because of federal laws, liability can extend not just to the original polluter but to new buyers. And so very often this will serve as a impediment to new buyers. Good example is gas stations, which may have leached oil and gas into the ground. But there are many examples beyond that as well. 

Jessica Lall 
Spencer, I have another example that I worked on before I started at CB. I ran a large advocacy group and one of the things that we were pushing for here was the development of micro units and what can we be doing to spur more growth around much smaller units that work in high dense communities? And it was simple things like not having, changing the parking requirements or changing the fee per unit that a developer has to spend on green space, given that the goal here is to put more people and create more units and you’re building them near transit, so we're going to relieve or lessen the parking requirements. We're going to go for square footage cost for what you're going to have to pay to develop parks and green space versus a per unit footage. And these simple tweaks really have created more desire from developers to build these types of units. And they serve a population of people that are traditionally not served, as students, seniors. And the whole goal of, as we've talked about, living in a dense, more of a downtown environment is that the neighborhood is the amenity. You don't necessarily need the amenities in the building. So those are the simple kinds of things that I think came about from putting policymakers in with developers to say, here's our shared goal. What are the things that we can do to lessen the burden and unleash more of a desire to to build these types of units? And I think if we did those one by one, collaboratively, again, I think we'd see more incentives for the types of things that we want to see being built by listening to those who actually do this on a daily basis. 

Spencer Levy 
And we had a show a few weeks ago talking about innovations in the affordable sector that was twofold. Number one was a person that was able to talk about underwriting new tenants because sometimes just the application process of getting into a unit is so burdensome that that is a gate. But the other person on the show talked about, we're thinking about housing units incorrectly. A housing unit isn't just the four walls on the front door. It's the number of bedrooms in a particular apartment or home. And it brings up issues as it relates to tenants getting along, security. So we're not saying it's without its issues. What I am saying is that if we looked at the fractionalization of units more, which is more of a co-living arrangement, to your point, Jessica, we would open up a whole lot of supply. 

Jessica Lall 
Absolutely. 

Spencer Levy
So let's now talk about day to day. What should we be doing to move forward? And this is not on the regulatory side because I think we've already talked on that. This is on the getting the community comfortable side, which quite candidly, I think is much more difficult. How do we get the community on board? Let's start with you, Jerry. 

Jerry Davis 
Yeah, I would say the first word and last word answer to that is engage. Engage with every group as early as you can and as often as you can. And it's really hard and sometimes painful. But unless you get out in front of the objections and unless you bring in the different stakeholders and give them something that they can grasp on to in order to support your project, you're going to find your path is going to be really difficult. So it's a process of understanding the community you're building in, understanding what those groups are, what their interests are, and figuring out what their concerns are going to be and get them in early in time for you to give them an opportunity to influence your project. Because if you give people the opportunity to have a little bit of a say, their attitude is going to change radically. And then in doing so, you're going to build allies to your project. And there's strength in numbers. You're never going to convince everybody. But what you do need to do is get as many allies as you can. And then finally, you need to show the boards that you have to go in front of and the permitting agencies that you have allies, that you've worked with them, that you've made concessions, that you understand the community needs, and that those have been incorporated into whatever you're proposing. 

Jessica Lall 
Yeah, I agree with Jerry. I think you ULI did a study that showed folks who engage with the community early had a far greater success rate because they believed that the community was a collaborative partner in the development, not having the development pushed on them. And I think that's a critical component of this. I think it's really important that the project team have representation from someone who knows or understands the community involved in the process. It breeds credibility, which is what you're looking for. Go early. When we used to do this, we would lead communities through a visioning process. What do you want for the future of your community? Get that kind of feedback and then start to present your project in their terms, through their vision lens, and be prepared to compromise, right? I mean, if it's truly a collaborative process, there will be compromise, but if you are establishing that trust and credibility from the beginning–have a website, define your project before your opponent does, and don't believe that just having the support from the local elected official is sufficient because we know the local elected official’s job is to respond to the community. I think the most successful real estate developers that I’ve seen here, their CEO is responding and accessible and showing up at those community meetings, so they don't feel like they've sort of hired a consultant to do that work for them. It seems more genuine and authentic. And then highlight the ones… I think you mentioned, Spencer, Related. One of the things that they did at one of their big projects here in L.A. was they actually built the park before they started their development project, and I think that showed such goodwill and built that kind of trust that carried the project through. So I think thinking creatively about putting up winds early on to meet those needs so it doesn't feel like you're not going to see these benefits that are being talked about a generation later. 

Jerry Davis
I completely agree with you and especially what you said about making sure a member of the team is local because there is so much fear of the outsider. And going back to what we're talking about for the developer versus the builder. It doesn't matter what term you used. If you’ve got somebody local and who is putting their face in front of these groups, it makes all the difference in the world. You can have experts and architects from far afield, but you need to be represented locally in front of the community. And I wanted to add another tactic, which I think to Jessica's point about keeping up the pressure, typically around here you'll have a lot of traffic studies, traffic and health being the primary fears that people have. And experts are not necessarily given the respect that they deserve in zoning hearings. And so you can, as a developer, if you know you're going to be facing traffic as one of your primary objections from the community, don't stop at one traffic engineer. Get two, have professional reviews, give your permitting agencies new boards. Something to grab on to and have the ability to say when somebody says, well, that's just that traffic engineer's opinion, you'll have the ability to say no, it's actually multiple opinions because we've had this peer reviewed and we can really stand behind this. And you can apply that kind of logic towards really every aspect of the spectrum of objections. 

Spencer Levy 
And there's so many tactics we didn't talk about on this show, but I'll just mention a few of them to spur the conversation. One is transit oriented development, where you try to focus your development on existing infrastructure, most notably trains, to try to mitigate some of the vehicular traffic issues. Another tactic is to have age restricted housing versus having just market rate because age restricted doesn't tax your schools. It pays taxes into your schools but typically doesn't bring new students to your school. So any other pragmatic tactics that, Jessica, you or Jerry might suggest in order to overcome what are expected objections? 

Jerry Davis 
Well, I'll just jump in with one thing, which is Connecticut has an, what's called the 8-30g rule, which allows for a project that has a 30% or more affordable component to overrule local zoning constraints, so that if a lot has a single family zoning and you have an 8-30g project, you can build as much as you can fit on to that lot. However, if you don't want to do that and you really want to do something that is a bit more right sized, but you still need concessions, a tactic that’s often used is, say, you know what? We're going to dedicate 5% or 10% of these units to workforce housing. So they don't come under the Department of Housing definition of affordable, but you can apply the same kinds of deeded restrictions so that teachers and firefighters and policemen can afford to live in those units. And for a lot of towns like here, just like in L.A., as Jessica was saying before, that's a really appealing thing because those people can't afford to live in the community. It can open some doors. 

Spencer Levy
So I’m going to ask the big picture wrap up question, which is very simple. Are you optimistic? And let's start with you, Jessica. 

Jessica Lall
I am optimistic, Spencer, and I'm optimistic because of something you said at the top. We are in a multitude of crises that are compounding one another, and there is no other option but then to rethink how we've been doing things and innovate our way out. And I do believe we have experts who are doing this and we have elected officials who are realizing that government alone cannot solve its problems alone. They need to tap into that expertise that exists within their communities and that their function is to bring people together and then create a regulatory framework in order to meet these goals and objectives. We have tools now, and those tools can be used for good. I'm thinking of social media, for example, but I think if we're not afraid, and as Jerry said, we're leaning into these problems and leaning into these tools and having conversation, I believe we're seeing new ways of thinking come to bear. A lot of these ideas aren't adopted the first time around, but they're showing up a second, third time, and people are more willing to try different things and put together an unlikely coalition that maybe we haven't seen before. And it does start locally and I believe so goes the local. We'll see it spread on a national level. So I am optimistic. 

Spencer Levy 
Jerry, you'll get the last word. Are you optimistic? 

Jerry Davis 
I am optimistic. And I'm going to say a funny thing which is, I think that social media on a certain level is going to help. And I think when you bring up the topic of development on a local level, most people look at social media as an obstacle, and it often is. But I think it's also helping make people aware of the issues around housing. And I think that between that and younger people coming out of cities and expanding out and being more interested in urban settings and more dense forms of housing, I think that there's going to be a higher acceptability of denser housing, less obsession with single family homes. And I think that's going to drive the market to build more of those kinds of dwelling units. 

Spencer Levy 
So demand will drive supply. 

Jerry Davis 
Yeah. 

Spencer Levy 
Well, on behalf of The Weekly Take, what a terrific discussion today with two experts in the field of building more, not just building more, but how to do it, how to do it from a regulatory perspective, how to do it so that the community embraces you. Starting with Jerry Davis, managing partner of Davis Realty. Jerry, thank you so much for coming out. 

Jerry Davis 
Thanks, Spencer. It's been really fun. 
Spencer Levy 
And then our own Jessica Lall, Managing Director of CBRE based in Los Angeles. Jessica, thanks so much for doing the show. 

Jessica Lall 
Thanks for this conversation. Extremely important and inspiring. 

Spencer Levy 
Important and inspiring indeed. And we'll dive into more current events and market insights in the weeks ahead. You can stay on top of our programming and find related content by visiting our website, CBRE.com/TheWeeklyTake. You can also look for the special CBRE report we touched on, Shaping Tomorrow's Cities, at CBRE.com/Insights. Speaking of which, our upcoming slate also includes more explorations of the notable places cited in that report. So stay tuned for those conversations on our air, as well. Meanwhile, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show wherever you listen and reach out using the Talk to Us button on our home page. For now, thanks for joining us. I'm Spencer Levy. Be smart. Be safe. Be well.