CitySCOPE Podcast
Welcome to CitySCOPE, a podcast about cities and inclusive economic development from Kate Cooney and her students at the Yale School of Management. In Season 1, Remaking the City: Charting the Opportunity in Opportunity Zones, we spoke with developers, community organizers, housing experts, impact investors, foundation fund managers and public sector officials to learn more about how Opportunity Zones might be utilized for community benefit. In Season 2, the theme is Rethinking Community Engagement: Investigating the Role of Narratives in Inclusive Economic Development. In Season 3, we explored the history and research on efforts for Supporting and Scaling Black Businesses. Season 4 is organized around the theme Infrastructure and Equity. Take a listen!
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Childcare as Infrastructure
12/14/2023
Childcare as Infrastructure
Childcare is essential to the productivity of the economy locally and nationally. Often overlooked in conversations about infrastructure, in episode 10, we explore the idea of childcare as essential infrastructure. With Jessica Sager, Co-Founder and CEO of All Our Kin, we discuss childcare systems - or really non-systems and how recent legislation has sought to develop a functioning system, but how there is still work to be done. Matthew Archuleta and Payal Saini co-host.
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Critical Examination of the Built Environment
11/30/2023
Critical Examination of the Built Environment
In episode 9, we feature a wide ranging conversation with Elihu Rubin, Associate Professor at the Yale School of Architecture. We discuss both the market and power dynamics at play in decisions for remaking the city over time. With Faye Phillips as host, topics include: the crisis of the post-industrial city, the Prudential Center in Boston as both architectural form and symbol, the Goffe Street Armory in New Haven and it's potential as public infrastructure, and the role of historic heritage in everything from adaptive reuse to ghost towns. Show notes: Elihu Rubin’s personal website and faculty website More of Elihu Rubin’s work on Spring 22 IEDL project featuring the in New Haven Elihu Rubin’s 2012 book,
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Neighborhood Trusts
11/17/2023
Neighborhood Trusts
In episode 8, we learn about a new economic development tool called a neighborhood trust. Joined by Adriana Abizadeh, Executive Director of the Kensington Corridor Trust in Philadelphia, and Joe Margulies, Professor of Law and Government at Cornell University, we will explore the theory behind neighborhood trusts and the work underway in Philadelphia to set up one of the country's first community-controlled neighborhood trusts. With co-hosts Brandon Jones and Christina Bovey. Tune in! Photo credit: Luis Acosta Studio © 2020
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Constructing Community
11/02/2023
Constructing Community
In episode 7, we discuss the role that community development corporations (CDCs) play in constructing communities with Jeremy Levine, Associate Professor of Organizational Studies and Sociology (by courtesy) at the University of Michigan and author of Constructing Community: Urban Governance, Development, and Inequality in Boston. Topics include: the role that CDCs have in local development projects and neighborhood representation, earlier more top-down approaches of urban renewal in contrast with today's more bottom-up community development approaches, and the complexities of both mechanisms.
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Zoning Atlas with Sara Bronin
10/26/2023
Zoning Atlas with Sara Bronin
In episode 6, we explore zoning policy with Sara Bronin, Professor of the Cornell College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, and Associated Faculty Member of the Cornell Law School (on public service leave). Sara Bronin is a Mexican-American architect and attorney whose interdisciplinary research focuses on how law and policy can foster more equitable, sustainable, well-designed, and connected places. Through the Legal Constructs Lab, Sara created the National Zoning Atlas to translate and standardize tens of thousands of zoning codes across the country. She has advised the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Sustainable Development Code, has served on the board of Latinos in Heritage Conservation, and founded Desegregate Connecticut. Previously, she led the award-winning, unanimously-adopted overhaul of the zoning code and city plan of Hartford, Connecticut. This audio was created in spring 2022, before Sara Bronin was nominated to lead a federal agency in Washington DC. The conversation sheds light on work underway before she left CT for D.C. In her current role, she is no longer affiliated with DesegregateCT.
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TOD, part 2-Displacement or Community Dividend?
08/03/2023
TOD, part 2-Displacement or Community Dividend?
Co-hosts Joanne Jan and Sherry Li are back with our guests Karen Chapple of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto and Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning & Interim Dean of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs to continue our discussion on transit-oriented development (TOD). In episode 5, we dive into one of the hypothesized unintended consequences of TOD - gentrification and displacement. We learn some examples of TOD from outside the US and then Anastasia and Karen share the findings from their research on both residential and commercial gentrification. The episode ends with discussion on warning signs of gentrification and displacement along with strategies to employ once the process has already started in order to preserve affordability. Tune in! Photo Credit: Fruitvale Station Train, Oakland, CA Photo 88645825 | Transit © Sheila Fitzgerald | Dreamstime.com
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Transit Oriented Development, part 1
08/03/2023
Transit Oriented Development, part 1
The next two episodes feature conversations with Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning & Interim Dean of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, and Karen Chapple of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto. These are two giants in the field of urban planning and innovative scholars in their approach to the study of cities. We will be exploring the pros and cons of transit-oriented development (TOD) as examined in their co-authored book Transit Oriented Displacement or Community Dividends? Understanding the Effects of Smarter Growth on Communities. In episode 4, we learn about the benefits of TOD along with some of the reasons to be cautious about this approach. Our guests share the creative research approaches they developed to study neighborhood change and to engage with communities as part of the research process. Co-hosted by Sherry Li and Joanne Jan, Yale SOM MBAs. Listen in!
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The Move to a CBA Ordinance-Case of Detroit
06/15/2023
The Move to a CBA Ordinance-Case of Detroit
In episode 3, we speak with Lisa Berglund, Professor of Urban Planning at Dalhousie University to continue our exploration of community benefit agreements. This time, we take a closer look at CBAs in a specific context - Detroit. Detroit was the first U.S. city to have a CBA ordinance requiring CBAs for all development over a certain size. We learn how Detroit utilizes community benefit agreements along with other policies to support accountable economic growth and development. Professor Berglund shares insight from her close study of the case of Detroit and the urban governance design and processes undergirding this inaugural effort to mandate CBAs. Laura Brennan, MBA and Kate Cooney co-host. Tune in! Photo Credit: Photo 184268858 | Joe Louis Fist © Wirestock | Dreamstime.com Show notes: Lisa Berglund’s faculty website Dr. Berglund’s 2020 article,
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Community Benefit Agreements
05/25/2023
Community Benefit Agreements
In episode 2 of Season 4, we are joined by Virginia Parks, Professor at University of California Irvine, and Roxana Tynan, Executive Director of the Los Angeles Alliance for New Economy (LAANE) for a conversation about community benefit agreements. Steven Waller and Alice Yuan co-host. The episode describes the history and mechanics of CBAs, tracing their roots in early 2000s Los Angeles and how they have evolved over time to be a tool leveraged by city actors to promote equity and opportunity. We learn how the organizing work undergirding CBA activity in the early 2000s in Los Angeles showcased both the possibilities and shortcomings of CBAs and where the work has expanded in the decades since the modern CBA movement was born. Join us for a great conversation!
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Infrastructure and Equity
05/11/2023
Infrastructure and Equity
Season 4 of the CitySCOPE podcast features conversations with academics, urban planners, developers and community leaders weighing in on different mechanisms to drive more equitable development through infrastructure development. The season is organized around questions such as: How have communities organized to ensure that the community benefits from new development, who speaks for the community in urban governance networks, how can neighborhoods be revitalized without inducing the harms of gentrification and how does childcare fit into the infrastructure conversation? Topics include: community benefits agreements, transportation-oriented development, neighborhood trusts, urban governance networks, developer-led community benefits, and the role of childcare in our national infrastructure. Episode 1 provides a sneak peek at the voices you'll hear over the season. Take a listen!
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CitySCOPE live from New Haven!
05/03/2023
CitySCOPE live from New Haven!
Meeting the Moment with Inclusive Economic Development Sharing the audio from our first live podcasting event! February 10, 2023 from NXTHVN in Dixwell. To celebrate the bridge from the end of Season 3 to the launch of Season 4, we held a live event bringing together Stanley Tucker, President, CEO and co-founder of Meridian Management Company, Inc (MMG) featured in Season 3 with Adriana Abizadeh, Executive Director, the Kensington Corridor Trust (KCT), featured in upcoming Season 4. CitySCOPE favorite James Johnson-Piett, Principal and CEO, Urbane Development co-hosted. The event also features musicians David Chevan and Warren Byrd of . Hope you enjoy the conversation!
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Voices of the Entrepreneurs
12/19/2022
Voices of the Entrepreneurs
In our final episode for Season 3 of the CitySCOPE podcast, we have a bonus episode produced in collaboration with James Johnson-Piett and Maggie Clark from Urbane, featuring interviews from Urbane's work on the Philadelphia Equitable Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Assessment and Strategy report, completed in May 2021. Over the course of this season, we spoke with researchers, historians, practitioners, and city builders about efforts to support and scale Black-owned and Black-led businesses. In this bonus episode, we hear 10 BIPOC entrepreneurs in Philadelphia share about their entrepreneurial journeys and their views on how cities can create more equitable pathways to support thriving, diverse business founders move their businesses to the next level. Take a listen!
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Building Equitable Ecosystems with Accelerators
06/14/2022
Building Equitable Ecosystems with Accelerators
In episode 14 of the CitySCOPE podcast, we speak with Dianna Tremblay and Caron Gugssa-Howard from ICA in Oakland, CA about their work building a more equitable entrepreneurial ecosystem through accelerator and investment fund programing. Topics include: pathways to growth in the dynamic Bay area economy, using a venture-capital CDFI model to develop an accelerator targeting entrepreneurs from low wealth backgrounds, operating an accelerator with attention to both business scaling and the production of good jobs, integrating direct investment with accelerator programming, and developing capital investment vehicles that fit the mission. Join us for a great conversation!
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Venture Capital, Entrepreneurial Ecosystems and Inclusion
05/11/2022
Venture Capital, Entrepreneurial Ecosystems and Inclusion
Join us for episode 13 of the CitySCOPE podcast. We speak with Banu Ozkazanc-Pan, Professor of Practice at the School of Engineering and Academic Director of the IE Brown University EMBA program. She is also the Founder and Director of the Venture Capital Inclusion Lab at the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship. In conversation with Kate Cooney, Senior Lecturer at Yale University School of Management, topics include: the role of entrepreneurial ecosystems in a regional economy, research on equity and inclusion in entrepreneurial ecosystems, gender bias in capitalization of start-ups, the role of racial and gender wealth gap in the entrepreneurship journey, practical steps we can take to build more equitable ecosystems, and what’s at stake if we do not do so.
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Venture Capital, Networks and Access
04/13/2022
Venture Capital, Networks and Access
In episode 12 of the CitySCOPE podcast, Kate Cooney, Senior Lecturer at the Yale School of Management, talks with Donna Lecky, JD, MBA, Managing Partner, Health Venture Capital, CEO & Co-Founder, Health Venture and Co-Founder & Board Director of HealthHavenHub, Inc. Donna is also CEO & Founding Member of Women of Color Capital Collective, Inc. Join us for a wide-ranging conversation about Donna’s career path, the founding of Health Venture Capital, Health Venture and HealthHavenHub, the digital health innovation space, and her views on access to capital and the role of networks in successful entrepreneurial outcomes from the venture capital perspective. Join us!
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Networks and Why They Matter
04/05/2022
Networks and Why They Matter
In episode 11 of the CitySCOPE podcast, Kate Cooney, faculty at the Yale School of Management, speaks with Marissa King, Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Yale School of Management about her book Social Chemistry: Decoding the Elements of Human Connection. Topics include: networks and why they matter, different types of social networks, a tool to assess your social network, why the structure of networks is important for building social movements, and the role of networks for economic development. Join us!
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Merger Leads to Largest Black-Led Bank in U.S.
02/23/2022
Merger Leads to Largest Black-Led Bank in U.S.
Join us for episode 10 of the CitySCOPE podcast where Kate Cooney, faculty at the Yale School of Management, speaks with Brian Argrett, President & CEO of City First Bank and Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Broadway Financial Corporation. Topics include: the merger of City First and Broadway Financial to form the largest Black-led bank in the United States, the consolidation of the banking industry, the impact of the 2008 recession on Black-owned and Black-led banks, the history of disinvestment in Black communities and households in the United States, and the passion and creativity that go into creating quality financial products for low wealth communities. Take a listen!
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Crowdfunding for Main Street
02/09/2022
Crowdfunding for Main Street
In Episode 9 of the CitySCOPE podcast Kate Cooney, faculty at the Yale School of Management, speaks with Topiltzin Gomez, Chief of Staff at Honeycomb Credit. Our conversation focuses on the decline of the community banking sector, the Jobs Act of 2012, the rise of crowdfunding, and the ways that community capital can be deployed for local small business investment. Topiltzin shares his journey to Honeycomb Credit, through the Venture for America program, and details how Honeycomb Credit builds out rungs to bankability for small businesses by connecting the community. Tune in!
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Entrepreneurship, Employment and Careers for Individuals with a Criminal Record
02/02/2022
Entrepreneurship, Employment and Careers for Individuals with a Criminal Record
In Episode 8 of the CitySCOPE podcast Kate Cooney, faculty at the Yale School of Management, speaks with Kylie Jiwon Hwang, Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Kylie’s research lies at the intersection of entrepreneurship, discrimination and labor markets. Our conversation focuses on her dissertation research examining entrepreneurship and employment for formerly incarcerated people. Topics include: the current statistics on incarceration and recidivism in the United States, barriers to employment in the labor market for individuals with a criminal record, entrepreneurship as a response to labor market discrimination, employers’ views of candidates with entrepreneurial experience, and the role of employment and entrepreneurship in reducing recidivism. Join us!
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Anchor-Based Business Development
01/25/2022
Anchor-Based Business Development
Episode 7 of the CitySCOPE podcast features a conversation with Kate Cooney and Boris Sigal, Co-Executive Director of the Community Purchasing Alliance (CPA). Boris graduated from the Yale School of Management in 2014. Post-graduation, Boris worked for a number of years in New Haven, first in a special one-year position created between the New Haven City Economic Development Administration and the Yale University Office of New Haven and State Affairs and later as Director of Business Development at New Haven Works, where he focused on building closer relationships with the regional business community and aligning local hiring opportunities with large employers like Yale University and Yale-New Haven Health. Topics include: insights from analysis of Yale University’s procurement spending and the impact of operational decisions on the regional economy, reflections on a year-long initiative to move some of Yale University’s spending on procurement toward regional vendors, the landmark Yale University New Haven Hiring Initiative, and the impact on local business development that can result from banding smaller anchors (churches and schools) into purchasing cooperatives. Join us!
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McDonald's and Black America
01/18/2022
McDonald's and Black America
In Episode 6 of the CitySCOPE podcast Kate Cooney speaks with Marcia Chatelain, Professor of History and African American Studies at Georgetown University about her Pulitzer Prize winning book Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America. Take a listen!
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The Stanley Tucker interview
01/11/2022
The Stanley Tucker interview
In Episode 5 of the CitySCOPE podcast we share the interview with Stanley Tucker, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Meridian Management Company, Inc (MMG). Stanley has been in the business of supporting and scaling minority and women owned businesses for fifty years. Described as working with a mix of creativity and pragmatism, Stanley is recognized for generating some of the most innovative programs in the country. Be sure to join us for this one!
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Black Capitalism
01/04/2022
Black Capitalism
Join us for Episode 4 of the CitySCOPE podcast where we continue our exploration into the history of initiatives to support Black owned businesses in the United States. In this episode we feature conversations on the policy side of the story with Tim Bates, Professor emeritus at Wayne State University and Fred McKinney, recently retired Carlton Highsmith Chair for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Quinnipiac University.
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American Dream, Part Two
12/21/2021
American Dream, Part Two
Episode 3 of the CitySCOPE podcast features Professor Gerald Jaynes, the A. Whitney Griswold Professor of Economics, African American Studies, and Urban Studies with lead in commentary from Tim Bates, Professor emeritus at Wayne State University and Fred McKinney, former Carlton Highsmith Chair for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Quinnipiac University. This week we look at some stories of 19th and 20th century Black entrepreneurs who made it big, despite the odds.
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American Dream, Part One
12/14/2021
American Dream, Part One
On episode 2 of the CitySCOPE podcast, we explore the research on ethnic and immigrant entrepreneurship and the American Dream and how it relates to the literature on Black business. This episode features conversations with Zulema Valdez, Associate Vice Provost and Professor in Sociology at the University of California, Merced and Gerald Jaynes, the A. Whitney Griswold Professor of Economics, African American Studies, and Urban Studies as well as Tim Bates, Professor emeritus at Wayne State University.
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Supporting and Scaling Black Businesses
12/06/2021
Supporting and Scaling Black Businesses
Welcome to Season 3 of the CitySCOPE podcast! In episode 1, we introduce our theme–Supporting and Scaling Black -owned and Black -led businesses. To kick things off, Kate Cooney from the Yale School of Management and James Johnson-Piett from Urbane discuss the importance of the current moment and the surge of attention and support for Black businesses. As always, we conclude with a sneak peek of the conversations to come over the future episodes of the 2021 season.
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Reflections for New Haven
10/30/2020
Reflections for New Haven
Join us for episode 8 as hosts Alexandra Sing, Marisa Berry and Kate Cooney wrap up Season 2 of the CitySCOPE podcast rethinking community engagement and the role of narratives in inclusive economic development. In this episode, we reflect on how the lessons learned from other cities might apply in New Haven, the city where we live!
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Envisioning the Future City
10/15/2020
Envisioning the Future City
In the U.S. political economy, some economic regions grow and gain in prosperity in sustained ways while other cities' fortunes rise and fall over time. Co-hosts Evan Oleson and Stephen Henriques speak with Prabal Chakrabarti from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston about the lessons learned from the Working Cities Challenge. We also speak with James Johnson-Piett from Urbane Development about his work on the Sunnyside Yard Master Plan.
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Changing the Regional Story for Workforce Development
10/08/2020
Changing the Regional Story for Workforce Development
What is your mental model of an ideal worker? Is your mindset creating blind spots about talent development? In this week's episode, our co-hosts Norbert Cichon and Brice Eidson speak with leaders of two workforce intermediaries that have developed creative strategies for regional workforce development, David Dodson, past President of MDC Inc., (and Yale SOM graduate!) and Jerry Rubin of Jewish Vocational Services in Boston.
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Meaningful Inefficiencies in Civic Engagement
10/01/2020
Meaningful Inefficiencies in Civic Engagement
This week our co-hosts Uzma Amin and Tessa Ruben speak with Eric Gordon, director of the Engagement Lab and professor at Emerson College about creating meaningful inefficiencies that allow people to engage with government systems. Gordon draws a parallel between civic engagement and play: games are full of inefficiencies, it is games' intentionally cultivated difficulty within a clear rules structure that make them fun and meaningful. Photo credit: Courtesy of Craig Walker / Boston Globe Staff
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