Ahead of the Curve

Latest Episodes:

Episode 8: Natalie Pruett Jun 17, 2020

Show notes

This episode covers the creation of the City of Flint, Michigan's first master plan since 1960, Flint’s blight elimination plan, and the key role that property data and citizen engagement played throughout the planning and implementation process.
About Natalie Pruett:
Natalie is an urban economist and strategist. She has ten years of experience blending statistical analysis, institutional insights, and community input to improve the impact and transparency of governments and nonprofits.
Natalie’s work centers on urban development, urban resilience, vacant property adaptation, public land management, land banking, and real estate valuation and taxation. She works with an array of government and nonprofit institutions that have included the City of Flint, the Genesee County Land Bank Authority, the Center for Community Progress, the Center for Local Government Finance and Policy at Michigan State University, and the Community Foundation of Greater Flint. Natalie has led the development and implementation of bold plans and programs. In 2013, she was commissioned by the City of Flint to author a five-year blight elimination plan. Much of Natalie’s work is devoted to creating data-driven planning products that prioritize transparency and improving quality of life. She led the development of the Flint Property Portal, an online platform for property information-sharing, which was awarded the international Engaged Cities Award by Cities of Service in 2019. She has authored several policy reports and academic papers, including publications on tax foreclosure, municipal fiscal health monitoring, and community-based greening. Her planning, policy, and research is grounded by extensive experience working with grassroots organizations and community-based groups.
Natalie holds a MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science as well as a BS in Economics and a BA in Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy from the James Madison College at Michigan State University. She is currently completing a PhD in urban economics at the London School of Economics and Political science where her research centers on urban housing and resilience. She is a proud native of Flint, Michigan.

Episode 7: Joseph van Dyk Jun 09, 2020

Show notes

This episode covers the rise and fall of The City of Gary's economy, how and why the City of Gary worked with U.S. Steel to negotiate tax increment financing, the role data plays in comprehensive planning, the power of visual data display to increase public engagement with planning initiatives, and how COVID might affect Midwest communities.
About Joseph van Dyk:
Joseph served the City of Gary, Indiana for nearly ten years, most recently as the Director of Planning and Redevelopment. During his tenure, Joe managed economic development initiatives and negotiations with large employers like US Steel; led the Gary parcel survey and associated Gary Counts initiative; and spearheaded the city's blight elimination strategy, including oversight of major demolition projects and management of the city's Hardest Hit Fund Blight Elimination Program.
Joe partnered with state legislators to advance land banking and redevelopment statutes in Indiana, creating new tools for redevelopment commissions to combat property speculation and re-purpose unproductive land. Under Joe's leadership, the City of Gary adopted a new comprehensive plan in 2019 featuring novel approaches to land use planning and redevelopment in disinvested communities.
Joe currently lives in Seattle, Washington where he works as a city planner.

Episode 6: Jerry Paffendorf Jun 02, 2020

Show notes

This episode covers the history of parcels, how parcel data is being used by local governments, the role parcel data played in Detroit’s blight elimination efforts, and ideas for resource distribution during COVID.
About Jerry Paffendorf:
Jerry is co-founder and CEO of Loveland Technologies, a nationwide property data and GIS software company that runs landgrid.com.

Visitors to landgrid.com can surf nationwide property data for free, subscribe to GIS software, commission white label GIS systems, and license the data for use inside of their own apps and databases. Customers range from large real estate, insurance, energy, data, and other businesses, to governments, community development organizations, block clubs, and motivated individuals. The common thread is that all of them need to understand how the world is subdivided, owned, inhabited, and used in order to understand the world, make plans, and get their work done successfully.

Jerry grew up in New Jersey and has a GED, a BFA from Montclair State University, and an MS in Studies of the Future from the University of Houston-Clear Lake. He and his wife split their time between Detroit and Calumet, MI, an old copper mining city way up on the west side of Michigan's Upper Peninsula where he has been developing a geology interest and a rockhounding problem on the beaches of Lake Superior, which you can see if you follow him on Twitter or Instagram.

Episode 5: Michael Schramm May 26, 2020

Show notes

This episode covers the power of integrated data systems, using those systems for neighborhood-level research that informs policies and programs, and the importance of local and regional partnerships to access key data sets and sustain organizational relationships.
About Michael Schramm:
Michael is the Director of IT and Research at the Cuyahoga Land Bank and Research Associate at the Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development in the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

At the County Lank Bank, Michael is currently developing information tools to help the corporation use data to make strategic acquisition decisions as well as track property status from acquisition to demolition to disposition. Recognized as a national expert in property data systems, Michael is also extensively involved in the development and maintenance the neighborhood information system, NEO CANDO (Northeast Ohio Community and Neighborhood Data for Organizing).
Michael's expertise on foreclosure, subprime mortgages, and other real property data has been extensively utilized by the Neighborhood Stabilization Team sponsored by Neighborhood Progress, Inc, the Cuyahoga County Foreclosure Prevention Program as well as the City of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County. He is also active in the local foreclosure and vacant property dialogue through VAPAC (Vacant and Abandoned Property Action Council) and has presented at numerous national meetings and conferences on these topics.
Michael has B.S. degrees in Geography and Meteorology from Penn State University and a M.A. in Geography from Syracuse University.

Episode 4: Eric Schertzing May 19, 2020

Show notes

This episode covers county response to COVID, the role state and federal resources can play in supporting local government, the usefulness of housing trust funds, and using data to make more fair and equitable decisions About Eric Schertzing:
Eric is the Treasurer of Ingham County, Michigan and Ingham County and Bank Chair. Eric led the creation of the Ingham County Land Bank Fast Track Authority in 2005, the second County authority in Michigan, and serves as Chair and is a leader in the tri-county area for foreclosure prevention and consumer financial literacy.
He serves on the Capital Area Community Services Board of Directors and is a member of the Michigan Government Finance Officers Association (MGFOA), Community Economic Development Association of Michigan (CEDAM) the Congress for New Urbanism, the Michigan Sense of Place Council, and many other financial and development organizations.

Episode 3: Sally Martin May 12, 2020

Show notes

This episode covers housing issues of middle America, the power of strong local and regional partnerships, and how those partners are designing programming to meet community needs in the face of the COVID crisis.
About Sally Martin:
Since 2009, Sally Martin has served as the Housing Director for the City of South Euclid. Her main duties include managing residential code enforcement and overseeing the daily operation of the Housing Department. In addition, Martin helped establish the city’s affiliate community development corporation, One South Euclid, creating the Build-Grow-Thrive Residential Resale program, which has provided the main income stream for the non-profit. Since 2009, she has served on the region’s Vacant and Abandoned Property Action Council where she chairs the delinquent tax committee and has coauthored papers and studies on housing policy issues. She is a regular speaker at local, state, and national conferences, and serves on the boards of the Cuyahoga Housing Consortium, and Solutions at Work, Inc (SAW). She currently serves as the chair of the executive committee for the Greater Cleveland Reinvestment Coalition. Martin has a Bachelor’s of Science from the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications.

Episode 2: Ian Beniston May 08, 2020

Show notes

This episode covers how the YNDC works with partners, lessons learned from housing shocks during the Great Recession, and how YNDC plans to address housing shocks from COVID.
About Ian Beniston:
Ian is the Executive Director of the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation. He holds a Master of City and Regional Planning, is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners and a National Development Council Housing Development Finance Professional, and serves on the Board of Directors of Community Corrections Association, Ohio Poverty Law Center, and ACTION.

Episode 1: Alan Mallach May 05, 2020

Show notes

This episode covers the broader effects COVID-19 will have on housing and the economy, with a specific focus on how renters and landlords will be affected in the coming months and years.
About Alan Mallach:
Alan is a senior fellow with the Center for Community Progress and lecturer in the Graduate Center on Planning and the Environment at Pratt Institute. Alan has been engaged as a practitioner, scholar and advocate with the challenges of rebuilding America’s cities and their neighborhoods for over fifty years.

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