Harvard real estate symposium hails local land-use planning.

As "smart growth" and 'livability" have become rallying points for voters and politicians alike, top executives in the real estate industry concluded that there cannot and should not be a national urban policy, but that land-use planning should be dealt with on a local level. While there is a national housing policy promoting home ownership, the de facto national urban policy has been one of non-intervention. Discussing the role of the federal government in addressing issues such as suburban sprawl and decentralization, industry leaders questioned the appropriate focus of a national urban policy, arguing that no such policy could overcome the inequalities of cites across the country.

As part of Executive Education at the Harvard Design School, the Senior Leadership Forum brought together 30 top-level executives representing private development, real estate finance, design, as well as the public sector, and civic leaders. Speakers at the forum included faculty from the Design School, the Business School, the Kennedy School of Government, and the Faculty of Arts and Science. Discussion leaders included professors Michael Porter, "Inner Cities in the New Economy," Marshall Goldman, "Russia and the Future of Eastern Europe," Peter Rowe, "Urbanization in China," Michael Tushman, "The Impact of Technology on Organizations," University Reverend Peter Gomes, "Leadership and Ethics," and Philadelphia's Mayor Ed Rendell, "Politics and Rebuilding the City."

Industry leaders including James Chaffin, president of Chaffin/Light Associates and past president ot the Urban Land Institute (ULI); Tom Curley, head of USA Today; Jan Doets, CEO of ING Real Estate, a Netherlands-based international real estate company; Gerald Hines, owner of Hines, developer and owner of office, retail, and industrial properties throughout the U.S. and abroad; Eugene Kohn, president of Kohn Pederson Fox, a world-wide architecture firm; John McLernon, CEO of Collliers International, a Canadian-based real estate firm operating in 52 countries; Dan Neidich, senior partner of Goldman Sachs' real estate activities; Jeremiah O'Connor, CEO of the O'Connor Group; Robert Peck, commissioner of the Public Buildings Service; Penny Pritzker, president of Pritzker Realty Group; George Ranney, Jr., CEO of Chicago Metropolis 2020; Peter Rummell, CEO of The St. Joe Company; Charles Shaw, chairman of the Chicago-based The Shaw Company and past president of the ULI; Ron Terwilliger, national managing partner for Trammell Crow Residential and current president of the ULI; James Thomas, CEO of the Los Angeles-based Thomas Property Group; Owen Thomas, managing director for Morgan Stanley Realty; and Richard Ziman, president of Arden Realty.

"Some cities are vibrant others are dead; some cities are rich, others are poor," comments James Chaffin, president of Chaffin/Light Associates. "Given the disparity among cities across the country, it would be impossible to deal with urban issues on a federal level."

While there was a consensus that the government should not attempt to enforce a national urban policy, participants in the first annual Senior Leadership Forum for real estate at the Harvard Design School agreed that specific federal incentives make sense in such areas as compensating cites for the services they provide for the poor, enforcing prohibitions on discrimination in the housing market, encouraging energy-efficient and environmentally sound development as well as the reclamation of brownfields and industrial sites, and improving safety.

"Each city has somewhat different problems, and it would be too difficult for the central government to manage urban policy down to the micro level," states Gerald Hines, a leading developer and owner of office, retail, and industrial properties throughout the U.S. and abroad. "The federal government should have a role in making sure that cities do not bear an undue burden relative to housing immigrants and the poor, for example, but any discussion about land-use planning should take place on the local level."

As Alan Altshuler, Professor of Urban Policy and Planning at the Harvard Design School, and director of the Alfred A. Taubman Center for State and Local Government at the Kennedy School, pointed out in a presentation at the forum: There are three common perceptions of the urban problem that federal regulations may attempt to address: (1) the decline of inner cities, (2) the sprawling of metropolitan areas, and (3) the concentration of poor living in the cities. Each of these point to different remedies that the government may undertake to solve the urban problem, but virtually all policy responses, such as growth control restrictions, tax incentives to steer investment into city centers, and open space acquisition and infrastructure investment policies, are controversial.

"Sprawl has been a solution to the affordable housing problem," Altshuler noted. "In order to build low-cost housing, you have to go out to the edges of the metropolitan areas where there is less resistance to development. Growth control restrictions and open space acquisition policies can add to sprawl as development leaps even further beyond the ring of restrictions."

According to Nicolas P. Retsinas, director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard, lecturer in Housing at the Design School and Kennedy School of Government, and speaker at the forum, the trend of decentralization and horizontal growth, or "sprawl," continues to dominate patterns of development across the country, job growth is higher in suburban areas than in the cities, and revitalization projects in inner cities are, at best, anecdotal. Past administrations have made the political decision to not push for the establishment of a national urban policy, and have allowed the demographic and economic forces to shape this country for the last century. While the U.S. seems to have a home-ownership and housing policy administered through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the current national policy on urban development is a de facto policy of non-intervention.

Richard Peiser, Professor of Real Estate Development at the Harvard Design School and organizer of the forum, adds: "The concentration of poor people seems to be the real problem of our cities. Individual programs dealing with environmental, social, educational, and health issues that might be useful in helping the poor and improve their access to services do not constitute a national urban policy. There seems to be little political support for a national urban policy to encourage inner city revitalization, beyond the current token incentives such as Empowerment Zones."

The quality of public education dominated the group's discussion. Peter Rummell, CEO of The St. Joe Company, noted: "The quality of public education is the single biggest impediment to the revitalization of American cites.