Social Sustainability

Project Spotlight: Caring for Your Community

The Downtown Day Services Center offers services to individuals experiencing homelessness by utilizing a housing-first model and is operated by the DowntownDC BID. In South Africa, approximately 45 million people rely on the public health system most of whom are low-income earners who cannot afford to pay high prices for health care. Responding to this need, the Greater Tygerberg Partnership (GTP) collaborated with the Cipla Foundation to launch a new community-based healthcare.

Strategies to Advance Equity and Racial Justice in the Place Management Industry

Join IDA’s Inclusive Places Council (IPC) to explore specific actions place management organizations can take to advance equitable development and racial justice within the industry and in the cities where we work. Hear from a panel of experts and practitioners about the work they’ve done and the challenges they’ve faced around equity and inclusion in the place management field.

Taking a Leadership Role in Affordable Housing

The affordable housing crisis is forcing downtown workers to live farther and farther away, reducing our competitiveness as a jobs center. Downtown organizations are in a unique position —due to our skills, partners, constituencies and clout— to take a leadership role in creating workforce housing. Come hear creative examples that you could implement in your community.

Sha’p Left Community Primary Health Care Hub

A containerized community clinic providing accessible, affordable primary health care to commuters in a busy, inner-city downtown area. In South Africa, only 17 in 100 people have access to quality private health care. This leaves around 45 million people relying on the public health system. Most of this group are low-income earners, living in high-density growing urban areas, who cannot afford to pay high prices for health care.

Greening Lab

In a city with a nation-leading park system and leafy neighborhoods, downtown has been the gap in our tree canopy for generations. Trees cover 30% of Minneapolis overall, but only 4% in the downtown core. This is significant for our community because street trees are an invaluable resource for improving public health, addressing the heat island effect, and creating an inviting public realm.

The Changing Face of Economic Development: Land Use, Sustainability, and Housing

Millennial demographics, internet-fueled lifestyles, and a sharing economy (rides, workplace) alter land use and tax generation priorities for cities. Retail is no longer just about retail, with “place,” authenticity, and “trips,” becoming the defining components of a successful town center. Concurrently, the state is driving cities to change land use processes based on climate control and affordable housing mandates, while providing development incentives through new incentives and districts.

Looking for the Missing Middle

This session is devoted to one of our most challenging economic development topics—how to build middle-market housing in your downtown/urban community. Throughout the US, cities are struggling with this missing middle challenge. Without a solution, cities are left with high end luxury and low-end affordable housing. This panel brought together a developer, a public agency, and local planning expert to discuss middle income housing from three very different perspectives.

Multi-Modal Engagement and Progress: Multi-Partner Efforts

BIDs across the U.S. describe how they advocate for planning strategies, invest in research and community outreach, support new infrastructure and technology, and develop partnerships to collaborate on multi-modal transportation initiatives that shift the language around parking challenges in downtowns. Collaborations and marketing efforts by the organizations ensure multi-modal transportation networks are successful additions to urban livability and vibrancy.

Diversity and Inclusion Roundtable

Inclusive city building is a core value we all share and yet the path forward is not completely clear. Whether we are thinking in terms of our districts or of the place management profession, the strategies and tools for reaching our own expectations for diversity and equity are unwritten. The conversation begins in Baltimore and you are invited to participate in a round table discussion exploring ways to best move ahead and take a leadership role so everyone can see a place where they belong.

Infill Homes & Down Payment Assistance Program

The Community Redevelopment Agency’s (CRA) Parramore Housing Infill Program is specifically designed to increase homeownership in areas which have characteristically been difficult to develop due to aging housing stock, widespread non-conforming lots sizes, and antiquated infrastructure. Each home incorporates green building components and quality context-specific design, meeting the specific needs of Parramore residents.

Kate Joncas Master Talk – Baltimore 2019

Kate is currently the Director of Urban Strategy and Development for MIG. She leads strategic efforts for complex urban projects in downtowns, neighborhoods and urbanizing places. As Seattle Deputy Mayor from 2014 – 2017 she directed 32 departments, led waterfront redevelopment and Convention Center expansion, and developed a nationally recognized government performance initiative.

Albus Brooks Master Talk

Albus Brooks is the Vice President of Business Development and Strategy for Milender White, a development and construction firm operating in Southern California and Colorado. Serving two terms on Denver City Council, including two terms as Council President, Albus accomplished an ambitious range of progressive legislative victories with the goal of building a truly inclusive city.

Annie Milli Master Talk

Annie Milli is the Executive Director of Live Baltimore, a nationally recognized 501(c)(3) Residential Marketing Organization. A self-described “accidental urbanist,” Ms. Milli began her career as a graphic designer, later becoming an art director and executive in the field of commercial advertising. Ms. Milli led Live Baltimore’s marketing division from 2013 to 2017, during which time she developed a resident retention initiative, targeting city families.

Tony Seba Master Talk

Tony Seba is a lecturer in entrepreneurship disruption, and clean energy at Stanford University, a serial Silicon Valley entrepreneur and a world-renowned thought leader and speaker. He is the author of the #1 best-selling book “Clean Disruption of Energy and Transportation – How Silicon Valley Will Make Oil, Nuclear, Natural Gas, Coal, Electric Utilities and Conventional Cars Obsolete by 2030”.

Tyler Norris Master Talk

Tyler Norris, MDiv, is an entrepreneur and founder of over a dozen businesses and social ventures. His three decades of service in the public, private and non-profit sectors have focused on population health, community vitality, and equitable prosperity. Currently, he serves as vice president, Total Health Partnerships at Kaiser Permanente, where he helps lead the implementation of “anchor institution” work.

Gabe Metcalf Master Talk

Gabriel Metcalf is the President & CEO of SPUR. Under his leadership, SPUR has grown dramatically in influence and membership. Before becoming head of SPUR 2005, Gabe headed up SPUR’s policy and advocacy work for five years. A prolific writer and speaker, Gabriel earned his Master’s degree in city planning from the University of California, Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design.

Ellen Dunham Jones Master Talk

Ellen Dunham-Jones is a professor of architecture and urban design at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she coordinates the MS/Urban Design degree. An authority on sustainable suburban redevelopment, she is co-author of Retrofitting Suburbia; Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs (Wiley: 2009, 2011, 2013). The award-winning book’s documentation of successful retrofits of aging suburban property types into healthier, more sustainable places has received significant attention.

Holding Back the Tides of Time: How We Deal With Changing Retail Mixes

There is an ever-widening array of policy tools that cities in California and beyond have already implemented or are considering in an effort to regulate retail mixes and slow tenant displacement in rapidly-gentrifying or already-gentrified business districts. With some of these, enough time has even elapsed that we can now start to analyze outcomes.

Top Issues Council: Inclusive Places

Despite a remarkable urban revival over the past few decades, wealth and income disparities have widened inexorably in city centers, including both within and between metropolitan regions. Some place managers are asking themselves if their work has unintentionally fostered increasingly homogenized and exclusive urban districts. This report explores the challenges and opportunities in prioritizing inclusion and equity in the urban place management field.

The Opioid Epidemic: Is There a Solution For Your City?

Many cities wonder what they can do to help combat the opioid and addiction epidemic affecting their communities. This free webinar, presented by Futures of Palm Beach, will provide statistics on what’s working and what is not. It will open your mind to cutting-edge solutions and treatment resources, and empower IDA members with new tools, knowledge, and verbiage surrounding heroin use, addiction and addiction treatment.

Fasten Your Seatbelt: What the Coming Mobility Revolution Means for Your Downtown

Smart mobility technology that promises to make transportation more accessible, inclusive, and equitable could dramatically transform our downtowns. But how? What are the larger implications of the rise of autonomous vehicles? Stantec’s Urban Places smart mobility experts will explore autonomy’s implications for downtown development and get you up to speed on this paradigm shift and how to adapt.