Factually! with Adam Conover - Actually Solving the Housing Crisis with Heather Worthington

Episode Date: January 8, 2020

Think the housing crisis is intractable? Heather Worthington, Director of Long Range Planning for the City of Minneapolis, is here to prove to you that it’s not. She joins Adam to tell us how she helped pass the revolutionary Minneapolis 2040 Plan, how it will make her city more equitable and affordable, and the rest of us can make change in our own communities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And if you've listened to the show before, you know that the housing crisis in America is dire. And on this episode, we're going to talk about how we're going to solve it. But since we have to pose the problem first, just for fun, I'm going to try to recap how bad the housing crisis is in just one breath. Okay, here we go. 38 million American households spend more than a third of their income on rent, housing prices are rising at twice the rate wages are,

and of course where rent is unaffordable, more people end up homeless. And since housing costs in cities are so out of control, people have no choice but to live in low-density suburbs and drive long distances in order to get to work, all the while spilling planet-killing emissions out of their tailpipes. Okay, that was one breath, but there is one more point I have to make. In America's housing crisis, much like just about everything bad in American history, affects people of color disproportionately because of how discriminatory policies like redlining and single-family zoning were designed to limit federal housing financing in African-American

and other minority neighborhoods, creating a racial wealth gap that still exists today. Okay, I'm impressed that I did that, but unfortunately, now we're all depressed. Now, when I talk about these issues, the most common question I get is, okay, smart guy, you told me about the problem. What's the solution? And the second most common is, what hair products do you use? So for the record, let me just say, the answer is a blow dryer. Okay, men, stop obsessing over the goop in the can and start blowing hot air on your head. It works wonders. But getting back to housing, look, I understand the question. When a problem is as huge and multifaceted as the housing crisis,

it's really easy to throw up your hands and say, well, there's no way to fix it. But that's not true. There are changes that we can make that will make a difference on the ground. And there actually are people and places in this country that are making those changes right now as we speak. And today we have one of them right here on the show. My guest today helped lead the effort to pass perhaps the most farsighted urban planning document in recent history in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Among other things, the plan, known as Minneapolis 2040, takes the obvious but incredibly difficult step of eliminating restrictive single-family zoning in order to increase the city's housing supply and to address the city's history of racial segregation.

Whole swaths of the city, which were once only allowed to have one unit on a parcel of land, will now be allowed to have three. And that might sound basic, but in truth, it's a revelation and a proof of concept for future efforts nationwide. But how did they get such a massive plan passed? How much can we expect it to achieve? And how might the strategies it employs address our housing crisis as a whole? Well, to answer these questions, I'd like to introduce the Director of Long Range Planning for the City of Minneapolis, Heather Worthington. Heather, thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Adam.

So tell me, what is, in the shortest words you can, what is the Minneapolis 2040 plan? And why has it been getting so much attention? I mean, it's kind of rare that a new city planning document would get national news coverage, yet this one has. Why is that? Well, you know, I've jokingly said a couple of times that I think we moved some major cheese when we did this plan. And that's really not a joke. We did change quite a few things that I think were near and dear to people's heart or thought they were. And the comprehensive plan is really just that. It's every 10 years, cities in Minnesota are required to undergo a comprehensive planning process. It requires

a system statement, which is basically a document that shows you how you're going to handle transportation and water and sewer and sanitary sewer and storm sewer. So it's kind of a dry planning document at its very core, but it's necessary in a region that has 187 cities. And this can be kind of a complex area of 3 million residents. And so Minneapolis being the largest city, we take that very seriously, that we need to do a good, robust, comprehensive planning process. And so that's what we did this time. And I think the other thing is that this plan was really predicated on the knowledge that Minneapolis was, after almost 50 years, finally growing again in population. And we were experiencing some of the deepest racial

disparities in the nation. And that was surprising to people, but it was also a wake-up call for us to do deeper and more meaningful and intentional work around how we could reverse and eliminate those disparities. Right. And that is what seems to be so revolutionary here. I mean, in my past work on Adam Ruins Everything, previous episodes of this podcast, other podcasts I've hosted, I mean, in my past work on Adam Ruins Everything, previous episodes of this podcast, other podcasts I've hosted, we've talked about redlining, which was, you know, the process by which, you know, African-American families, other families of color were prevented from, you know, receiving home loans. And that process segregated our neighborhoods. And those are explicitly racist policies of the past. But we're still living with the effects today.

We still have this sort of landscape that is segregated in this manner, and we actually have to take steps to reverse that, and that's what your plan is actually doing. That's the idea here, is that the plan itself and other policies that the city has passed in the last few years. The city council passed minimum wage, municipal ID, inclusionary zoning. These are all part of a broader scope of work that can address those deep and persistent racial disparities. People have asked me many times, well, why do we need to worry about this today? Those things aren't allowed anymore. And I think you just made the point. Yes, they're not allowed anymore. You cannot racially restrict housing any longer in this country. But the effects of that legislation that was around for close to 80 years are still apparent today in our communities and

can be directly traced back to those former racially biased housing and land use policies. And I do want to make the point that housing discrimination is not completely gone in America. You know, there have been studies of, you know, realtors having discriminatory practices of who they'll show what neighborhoods. Newsday had a big report on that about discrimination in realty on Long Island, where I grew up. about discrimination in realty on Long Island, where I grew up. But let's talk about some of these actual policies that you've instituted. One of the ones that struck me the most was that you essentially ended single family zoning in Minneapolis, which was not a policy that was super on my radar, that single family zoning would be something we would want to end. So tell me, yeah, why is that? What are the problems with single family zoning? And what do you hope will

change for the better? So, you know, beginning in about 1900 in Minneapolis, developers utilized a tool called a racially restrictive covenant or deed covenant to restrict housing in some areas to whites only. And so white residents were only allowed to buy property in those areas. And those legal documents, those covenants were legally enforceable by the courts and could result in homeowners losing their economic equity in that home if they sold to a person of color. And this is in a time period when we really hadn't yet defined race in this country from a policy standpoint. And so these covenants are very specific about the people that these homes cannot be sold to. And they basically exclude the sale of these homes to anyone who is not white.

And whole parts of the city developed around these racially restrictive covenants. And there's a team at the University of Minnesota led by Dr. Kristen Deligard called Mapping Prejudice. And Mapping Prejudice has been mapping these racially restrictive covenants. So we looked at that data first. And then we started to overlay the data that we had about redlining. So redlining is something you've talked about in your podcast. And redlining was a practice that was basically created by the federal government to decide where they would make federally underwritten loans for home mortgages. And every city had a redlining map. There were areas of cities that were deemed to be desirable, and there were areas that were deemed to be dangerous or sort of in decline. And in the in decline and dangerous areas, the federal government would not underwrite mortgages.

And so that left people living in those areas with very few avenues to obtaining a home mortgage. It's not accidental that most of the people living in those areas were also people of color because they had been covenanted out of the areas that were considered desirable by the federal government for underwriting a home loan. So you have this confluence of policy and practice that creates winners and losers in terms of where they could live, how they could obtain a home mortgage. And we all know that a home mortgage and the ownership of a home is probably the most important way that Americans build household wealth.

And these are explicitly racist policies. There's no bones about it. They are on the face of them, the purpose of them. It's in the letter of the law, even that these, this is a racial based discrimination. Right. And in Minneapolis, you know, in the 1920s, we had a returning World War I veteran who's African American who tried to buy a home that did not have a deed restriction on it. And he successfully purchased the home. However, there was a multi-day race riot that occurred after he purchased the home and his family was eventually

pushed out of the home. So these are very real historical incidents that occurred that really shaped how this community grew and changed over time. And then when you look at the 1950s and 60s, when they're trying to determine routes and locations for the federal highway system, they used those homeowners loan corporation or Hulk maps to determine the location of the freeway system. And not by accident, the freeways went through the redlined areas, the areas that showed up as being dangerous or in decline. And so that was another layer of policy and practice that was racially biased. And let's just talk about exactly that was. That means that, hey, we need to put a freeway

somewhere. We need to knock down a bunch of homes to do it and divide a neighborhood in two. Oh, well, let's do that to the black neighborhood. That's what we're talking about. Yeah. And so here in Minneapolis, it was the Cedar Riverside neighborhood and the north side of Minneapolis. In St. Paul, it was the Rondo neighborhood. And this was I-94, which was built in the late 1950s. And it had irreparable damage to those communities. People lost homes. They also lost connections to things like their community churches and their schools. And so those are long-time impacts. If a freeway comes through your neighborhood and your church or your schools on the other side of the freeway, well, that's not in your neighborhood anymore.

You can't cross. Well, now I got to cross 16 lanes of traffic or whatever to get to my local church that destroys the fabric of neighborhoods. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so we're still living with the effects of those decisions coming on 50 years now. the effects of those decisions coming on 50 years now. And so the comp plan really tries to call those out and think of ways that are reparative that we can address those in policy and practice going forward. And so how does single family zoning tie into that? Because those are explicitly racist policies, but I understand from reading about the Minneapolis 2040 plan that there's also this feeling that single family zoning, which is kind of a bedrock assumption for a lot of Americans.

A lot of Americans say, hey, you know, the home everyone wants to live in is a single family home. That should be the goal. And we should protect single family neighborhoods, et cetera. But that that type of zoning also has racial effects, even though it's not an explicitly racist policy like those. Can you tell us about how that works? Well, and it's interesting that you say it's not explicitly racist because when racial restrictive covenants were used widely and they were used right up until 1948, there was a Supreme Court case. The use of those covenants was really what informed modern zoning. The use of those covenants was really what informed modern zoning. And so when the federal government developed their redlining maps, they were doing that in a responsive way to those covenanted areas.

And then they turned around and said to local governments who were in the 1920s and 30s starting to do what we would think of today as modern zoning, they said to those governments, you should use this language in your zoning codes to help emphasize the importance of these redlining maps and the use of covenants. So they actually talked explicitly about using zoning as a tool to continue segregating people by race. So actually, I think zoning could be categorized as a racially biased tool. And that is something we're trying to undo because that is what our residents recognized as exclusionary zoning, right? Not inclusionary zoning. So if someone lives in a single family

zoned place, and this is true in cities other than Minneapolis, right? Everywhere. Everywhere in America. So if you're living in a neighborhood that's single family zoned, like you should know that type of zoning is the descendant of all of these racist policies. And even when it was put in, it was sort of like, hey, let's just do the same thing, but by another name. We'll call this exclusionary policy single family zoning now instead of redlining or racial covenants. The way I like, I think that's right. And the way I like to think about it is that if you look back, let's start in 1900 and the prevalent use of racially restrictive covenants for new construction in Minneapolis. And this is when our most desirable neighborhoods are being developed, the neighborhoods that exist around the lakes and have good access to our beautiful park system. We have an amazing park system here in Minneapolis.

Those are the covenants that are being used to restrict those areas by race. Then you look at the next layer as redlining and then the third layer as zoning. So these things all work together. They're all part of a broader approach to how we're restricting land use based on race. So tell me about, you know, those three layers over decades. I mean, you're talking a century here. What is that? What did that make Minneapolis look like? Right? What were the effects of that on Minneapolis that, you know, this plan is hoping to undo? What does Minneapolis look like right before this plan came into being? So we looked, so that's a really great question. And I wish this wasn't radio,

because then I'd show you a map. But we looked at this question, because we had all this data from Mapping Prejudice. And you can go on their website and look at their data, and it's fantastic. And then we had 2016 census data, ACS data, American Community Survey. And we looked at that and said, okay, wonder what the correlation is between current racial patterns, racial settlement patterns within the city, and how people are segregated by race, and those covenants that we mapped through mapping prejudice from the early 1900s. And not surprisingly, the areas that were white and covenanted in the 1900s are still primarily white neighborhoods. The areas that were mixed race or people of color are still people of color today. And those are the neighborhoods that did not have covenants.

And tell me why that is, because I'm sure some folks listening are going to say, well, hold on a second. We don't have those covenants today. So anybody can move wherever they want. So, you know, what's the problem? Like, yeah, why aren't people naturally desegregating themselves? So that's a really interesting question. And I'm not a sociologist, but I will say this. I think those settlement patterns have a certain durability to them. I think those settlement patterns have a certain durability to them. Because when you think about where you choose to live as a human being, you might choose a neighborhood based on a variety

of metrics, right? You might say, oh, I like it because it's close to where I shop or close to where I go to school or where my kids go to school, or close to where I go to church or mosque, right? So you might have a number of reasons why you choose that area. And you might also think, will I feel welcome there? Will I see other people who look like me? What will that feel like for me living in that neighborhood? And so I think we all sort of go through that process when we think about where we're going to live. And it turns out that those settlement patterns and sort of the persistence of those settlement patterns are, again, not accidental. Those neighborhoods have been white for a long time. And so I think that people of color look at those neighborhoods,

and even if they could afford to live there and did have access, they might choose not to. So that's an interesting problem that we have that zoning will not solve. Zoning will not solve that problem. But there's also, I mean, there's also the issue of affordability, right? Because if white folks in, you know, if your grandfather was able to get a, you know, cheap mortgage, you know, GI Bill era mortgage in one of those white areas, and then that's the, you know, area where all the other affluent white folks settle, and then all of those housing prices go up and et cetera, versus someone who was not who didn't have access to that mortgage, well, then that's generational wealth that that family is missing out on.

I'm the beneficiary of my grandfather and my parents being able to get mortgages, and that's wealth that's in our family that when they die, they'll have an extra home that I'll have to sell. And that's something I can count on if I want to get my own mortgage in the neighborhood. But if you're denied that ability, well, then that is an entire community that has less wealth that they can use to break into that community later. Is that right? That's right. That's right. And I think that's the persistence of the problem is that the people who were now saying we need to, we need to fix these racial disparities, and we need to fix the disinvestment problem, and we need to fix the access problem. Those populations are people who are already behind the eight ball, so to speak, right? They're already not, they don't

have the generational wealth that white residents of this community have. They don't have a history of having a home or other income producing or, you know, wealth producing ownership of something. And so this is part of the challenge of hanging all of our hopes on this comp plan. This comp plan won't solve all of that. This comp plan basically says, here are the problems and here's some things we think we could do to change the current situation. But it is not in and of itself an answer. There are multiple levers that we're going to need to pull to fix what is a 75-year problem that's been in the making for my entire lifetime. And I think you're absolutely right.

been in the making for my entire lifetime. And I think you're absolutely right. Generational wealth is a really important measurement of how well families do and how resilient they are. So the other thing that I think is really interesting about this conversation is, if you have a home, you have an asset, right? And so you have the ability to turn that into money if you need to. And one of the things that's really interesting about Minneapolis, and I think every other city in America, or most cities, is that if you bought a house, let's say 20 years ago, and you've lived in that house continuously, and you've made your mortgage payments, you probably have seen an increase in the value of that investment. Now, depending on the area, it might not be huge, but it's certainly probably worth more today than

when you bought it. And so that represents a certain sort of like, if you want to call it a safety net for you economically. And that is a very hard thing to predict and a very hard thing for people to understand who've been in a house that long. And then they turn around and they're ready to sell it and they don't realize how much it's appreciated in value. And I think that's stunning for a lot of people because they live in these neighborhoods, they raise their kids there, and then they're kind of like ready to downsize and they turn around and their house they paid a hundred for, a hundred thousand for is worth a half a million today. That happens every day in Minneapolis. And it is kind of shocking, but that again is part of

the challenge here, too, which is that the market has really outpaced people's ability to afford a lot of that property. And so we've got an affordability problem in Minneapolis as well. And most American cities are facing this as well. Some are much, much larger affordability problems, San Francisco and Boston and New York. But even here in the Midwest, Minneapolis is becoming a very expensive place to live. And it's challenging for us. Yeah. And that's such a, you actually put your finger on something that I've never thought of before with the housing crisis, which I spent a lot of time talking and thinking about. But, you know, we talked about, I talked about in the intro about how housing prices have risen so much more quickly than wages, which is obviously a huge problem, right, for affordability, for folks being able to have a roof over their heads.

But if you own a home that was purchased before that dynamic really kicked into effect, well, you're actually benefiting from that rise in housing prices because your mortgage has stayed the same. and housing prices because your mortgage has stayed the same. The value of the home has just gone up because you have this sort of scarce resource in a way. And especially, you know, not to mention, let's say that your parents bought the home in 1950 and they've been living there, you know, ever since. And then you inherit it and you set like that's a huge thing that you've profited from. But for that person who's living in the rental apartment, who dreams of owning a home one day in the, you know, formerly redline neighborhood, that means that that sort of homeownership gets just further and further out of reach for them. Right. And that is a major challenge. I always use myself as an example, because I want people to understand that we all experience this in different ways.

My experience is that my husband and I bought our house 23 years ago, and it's tripled in value, and I probably couldn't afford it today. But yet my income covers the mortgage nicely because it's a very low mortgage that I have. It's much less than I'd pay if I had rent to pay. It's something like a third of what I would pay for that amount of space and rent. So again, you know, and my income hasn't gone up a lot in the last 23 years, but significantly. And so again, I'm an outlier in both cases, right? I have very affordable housing and I have income that is more than sufficient to cover it. So that, I am an outlier, but most people are not in that situation.

Yeah. Well, so we spent a lot of time discussing the problem. Now I want to get into what the solution is. But very quickly, we have to take a short break. We'll be right back with more Heather Worthington. I don't know anything. I don't know anything. Okay, we're back with Heather Worthington. So we just spent the first half of the show discussing housing problems in Minneapolis.

The Minneapolis 2040 plan was created in order to solve them. What are some of the solutions that you're instituting? And let's talk about how, you know, what difference you expect them to make. For instance, eliminating single family zoning means that duplexes and triplexes will now be able to be built on single family lots throughout all of the area, in my understanding. How do you expect that to change the city in positive ways? understanding. How do you expect that to change the city in positive ways? So I think that change has gotten a lot of press. I will say that that change is pretty minor compared to some of the other changes we made, and I'm happy to talk about that. Oh, yeah, please.

I will say this. I think the expansion, I'm not going to call it elimination, although that's how it's been referred to. The expansion of our definition of single family, where you can have up to three units on any single family lot, is a way to build incremental and important access for residents into these formerly very desirable but kind of off- off limits areas of the city. I think it's a way to also address a major demographic change in our city, which is again, very common throughout the United States. And that is that you have a number of people, and we're talking about the boomer generation here. It's no secret that they're aging and they're retiring and they're downsizing. And they're a very large generation that has a lot of housing wealth in this community. And they came to us at the beginning of this process and said, you know, one of the things I've noticed is I'm trying to think of how I could sell my house

and downsize into an apartment or condominium and stay in my neighborhood. And I looked around and there's nothing here for me. There's no way I can do that. So could you look at that? Could you think about how we would zone the city differently to allow for some other types of housing products that I could buy and sell my house? So I think this has some important changes for everybody. I think this is something that can provide more access for a lot of different people, including people who already live in those neighborhoods and want to stay there. Because right now, their only alternative is to move to one of our near suburbs, where they're building a lot of senior type of, you know, senior housing types. So that, so, and the other thing is that, and we've talked a lot about this

as part of the comp plan, but the other piece of this was to give people more access and agency. And I want to just take two seconds and explain what I'm talking about. Please do. Access is what it sounds like, right? I have access to this area. I can find a unit that's affordable to me or a home. I can move into this area with lots of great amenities like grocery and transit and parks. That's the access argument. The agency argument is a little bit more nuanced. And really, it goes something like this. If you're a homeowner in a city, in any city, really, when you think about who shows up to help influence the policymaking process, it's almost inevitably a person who owns a home.

Renters aren't really, renters are here, renters are more involved in the conversation, I think, as an outgrowth of 2040, but generally not that involved. As soon as you sign a mortgage, you start getting cranky about the neighborhood and you start showing up at the meetings and exerting that sort of energy. I own a home in this neighborhood. I've heard it a million times here in LA. like around my house and did that storm sewer in my alley back up, right? I mean, these are all like real things, you know? So, the agency piece is really important. And so, what we wanted to think about was how do we afford people more agency in that process of decision-making in a community? And I think this is something our city council really found resonated with them, because they were saying, you know, why are we seeing the same people show up to community meetings and public hearings? And why aren't we seeing people in the community who are representative of cultural communities or racial communities,

ethnic communities? And so that's something that we took very seriously as we thought about it from a land use standpoint. Like why aren't people moving into these areas? So that was another thing that we thought was responsive in this expansion of the use of those single family lots. And so you can have any combination. You can have a single family home with an accessory dwelling unit. You can have a single family home that has an apartment within it, you know, like a subdivision. You can have a du-family home that has an apartment within it, a subdivision. You can have a duplex, a triplex. So there's a wide variety of ways to tackle that.

And we already permitted ADUs probably about five years ago. ADUs, that's what they call them, granny flats or whatever. It's like when you've got a little outbuilding. Yeah, granny flat, yeah, mother-in-law apartment. Yeah, there's a million different. Why is there always some poor woman being put in these? It's like when you've got a little outbuilding. Yeah, a mother-in-law apartment. Yeah, there's a million different. Yeah, so an accessory. Why is there always some poor woman being put in these? Why is it not the father-in-law, right?

Yeah. Okay, so a father-in-law apartment. And this is an expansion of how people can use their homes as well, right? Like if you own a single-family home, you're like, wait, now I can build a little unit in, or I can convert it so that there's an apartment, I can earn a little bit of income from that. Or if you say purchase, if you're in the position where you're knocking down a home, you have more flexibility in what you're going to build there instead, in order to, and that makes the whole neighborhood accessible to more people. Is that right? More people, more people. And I think also just more flexible use of property. So like one of the things that never occurred to me, I'm not quite old enough to think this way yet. But one

of the things that I heard somebody talk about was, oh, I'm going to build an ADU so that I can have a live-in caregiver live in that unit and I can stay in my house. So there's just so many different ways to look at's just so many different ways to look at this, so many different perspectives that are generational and sort of economic. So I think it just is a more expansive use of our land resource. That's how I would like to think of it. I will tell you that I think, and I said this earlier, the incremental, you asked me how much of this will happen. I think it is going to be very, very incremental. And I think part of that is the economics.

So the example that I've used a couple of times is, you know, in a lot of our really desirable single family neighborhoods, a house is, it's not unusual to find a house that's a half a million dollars. And I think one of the concerns that people have expressed, and I think it's, and I understand where it comes from, it's a legitimate concern. But they've said that, oh, they're going to tear that house down and build a triplex. And I think that part of the challenge with that thinking is that, you know, the economics of that just don't really work very well. When you think about buying the house for half a million, tearing it down for, let's say, 200, I don't know how much it would cost, 100. half a million, tearing it down for, let's say, 200. I don't know how much it would cost, 100. And then building a three-unit building on that site. That starts to be some serious money. And I think a lot of people are not well-capitalized enough to do that. I think some developers maybe are small builders. So you'll probably see some of that. But again, the numbers don't work very

well. As we like to say in the economic development world, it just doesn't pencil out. So I think that's something that will kind of keep a cap on how much of this we see. But where there are like a vacant lot or a house that maybe was torn down previously, I think that's where you'll start to see that infill happen. That's where you'll start to see that infill happen, certainly on city-owned lots. This is the approach we're taking, is to use those for duplexes and more up to a triplex. It's a good point. Why would someone buy a perfectly good home and knock it down when it is an asset? By the way, half a million, that's extremely cheap for California. So you're saying, it's just very funny hearing that number. Oh, I know, I know. I'm sure

your Southern California listeners are going, ha ha. But yeah, no, I mean, like 250 is about median value in the Twin Cities. So, you know, so that's a kind of expensive house for us. Yeah. Got it. Well, I mean, and it is an expensive house. Objectively, it's just, you know, Southern California is ridiculous. So, but, and, and also you have to compare to median income when it comes to that sort of thing. But, but yeah, so, so you don't see, yeah, you don't expect to see like some huge wide scale change to how these neighborhoods are, are laid out with like homes being torn down and new ones being built up. It's really about just loosening the restrictions so that people are able to use their homes in more flexible ways and that any new construction that happens

in a vacant lot can be more accessible as well. Right. And I think it's so important to remember that, you know, Minneapolis is about 52 square miles. So we're relatively compact. And land use is a very finite resource for us. Right. And so we have to think more creatively about how we utilize land. And so, you know, I think the other thing is that this doesn't come without restrictions. You have to maintain setbacks that are consistent with single-family uses around you. You have to maintain a height limit that's consistent with those single-family uses. Right now, you can build, as of right in Minneapolis, a 3,000-square-foot single-family home. And so what we're saying is basically you're building three 1,000 square foot units on that site. So, yes, it does come with some impacts, but I think those are manageable. And I think that's the key takeaway here is that this will be regulated and it will be manageable and it will be conforming with the neighborhood around it. So it's what some people have taken to calling gentle density. I like to think of it as an incremental approach.

Got it. Well, you are characterizing this, you know, I'm sort of like giving the most radical version of it. And you're saying, well, no, it's not that radical. It's not. It's more incremental than than you've heard. Right. But let me just say the press in, you know, other cities where people care about things like this was, oh my gosh, Minneapolis got this massive plan through. How did they do it? This is a dream scenario. What a wonderful thing. But also, what are the chances this is so difficult to do? Because we're also used to how conservative, small c conservative Americans are about housing policy, that whenever you're trying

to make a change to an area, you have people who like the status quo showing up in droves saying, hold on a second, this is going to destroy my neighborhood. I don't like this. Why are you doing it? And since those folks tend to be homeowners, they tend to have a lot of power, they tend to vote, right? There's a huge amount of inertia against making changes like this. I think we can say that's a general dynamic in American cities across the country. So yeah, how did you go about getting these changes made and getting the community to buy into them? So I think you're absolutely right. I mean, when you buy a home, you understand, I think, implicitly that you're investing in something

that will be your primary asset. So suddenly your perception of that asset and how it's being treated or regulated matters, right? So I think that's a completely legitimate, practical way of looking at it. You know, to answer the question about how did we do this, I think that we did this by to answer the question about how did we do this, I think that we did this by really, really engaging with the community and with the community, when I say the community, with a group of people that we had never intentionally engaged with before. And we really stepped out into the community and said, listen, if you've never come to a public hearing

or a community meeting before, we'd really love you to come and talk to us about this. And so we were really specifically focusing on marginalized communities. You know, think about people who work a second or third shift who can't come to an evening meeting. Think about people who, in the case of Minneapolis, couldn't come to a morning meeting. So we're really trying to pick times and locations that were accessible to people. Then we thought differently about how we did engagement. And so we have something in Minneapolis called Social Practice Artists. And this is a, I don't think it's unique to Minneapolis, but I think we might be kind of on the leading edge of it. But we have a community of artists who really help take very complex ideas and explain

them visually. And we contracted with these social practice artists to do a series of community engagement open houses. And we gave people a token for a meal. And we had food trucks, local food trucks, do the food for these events, hosted them in communities where people had easy access to the locations. We were very intentional thinking about how people would get there, how they would participate, and then how we would use that information to help shape the plan. And by the time we were done with the plan in its final draft form, we had close to 150 community meetings. So we did an incredible amount of engagement. But I like to think that it wasn't just sort of the box checking kind, where you get to the end and say, oh, yes, we had 100 meetings,

and we talked to X number of people. We did 150 meetings, and we talked to a bunch of people, and we did really high quality engagement. Yeah. Sometimes when elected officials or anyone in the city says, oh, we did community engagement, that means they went to a meeting and they got yelled at and didn't offer any responses. And they did that a couple of times and said that they were done. And they did it to say that they did it, but they didn't actually take that feedback. You really had a process where you tried to find out like how people felt about this, what they wanted.

Is that right? Right. And I did go to meetings and get yelled at too. So I mean like both. But I mean, you know, that was really important. We did just these really deep dives with people where we sat and we listened carefully and we took notes. And I had one of our planners, Ritana, transcribed, it was over 10,000 notes that people left in writing for us. Like they would leave a Post-it note on a map and he transcribed every one of those. I mean, by the time we were done, we had 18,000 comments, 18,000 plus. And it was pretty, I mean, when I look back on it, I think, wow, that was a pretty incredible effort. 14 people were devoted to it for almost two full years. And we did that internally. We did have a web master who built the website for us. And then we had our social practice artists who came in and helped us do

all the engagement. But by and large, that was our team writing that and doing that work. So they were, they were really focused on it and really serious about it. So they like, they'd jump on a light rail train and talk to people. They'd go into the community and meet with a focus group. You know, they, they were, they were very creative about how they did this. And I want to understand, it sounds like you were getting populations, you were getting comment and feedback and engaging with populations folks who are a lot of folks in your position aren't actually consulting those folks. And they're only listening to the rich homeowners. Isn't that right? Well, I don't know that I would agree with that. I don't think we intentionally cut them out of process, but we intentionally forget about them.

Yeah. You know, I mean, I think we do. It's more neglect than some sort of active. Oh, yeah. You know, I mean, it's and I think that the one of the things I've said to people who've asked me about this is that you have to do it in a genuine and authentic way. I mean, you have to really care what the woman who lives in the public housing high rise is telling you, right? I mean, you have to really be willing to go and listen carefully. have to really be willing to go and listen carefully. And so one of the things that our team said, you know, right at the beginning is we're going to listen more than we talk, which I think is powerful and not something we do very well in this society. So we tried to do that. We also just tried to say, who did we forget? You know, and then find out how we reach that community. And it helps that we have a Spanish-speaking planner on our team.

We have a Thai-speaking planner on our team. And then we had a group of people we worked with in neighborhood and community relations who are Somali-speaking because we have a large Somali population here. So we were really focusing in resources on people who we forget about. Yeah. And I think that's important. don't want changes, right? Tend to be the folks who have more money. They tend to be more politically engaged or they tend to vote more or they tend to be better connected with the folks who run our cities. They tend to, you know, know how to write an angry email that will frighten a politician, for instance, or that kind of letter. They tend to have that kind of pull and they, you know, or that kind of letter, they tend to have that kind of pull and they tend to be much, much louder. I've seen that dynamic in decisions getting made where I live in Los Angeles. I've heard about it happening in other areas. These aren't just, okay, we've got one person who should be listening to

more of the community. It's like the sort of structural issues in the way our city democracies work tend to lend, you know, lend themselves to one group's priorities getting privileged over another's. Yeah. How did you address that? Or do you really feel that this process of listening was able to overcome it? Well, I think the process of listening was an important part of that. But I also think that our elected officials are arguably the more important part of that, which is that they were able to listen to the varying perspectives and voices and still do what they felt was the right thing. felt was the right thing. And I think they set out right at the beginning in 2016, I think the most, maybe the most important part as I look back, is that we asked them to adopt a set of common values. And we have 13 council members and a mayor. And we said, we would really like you to lay a good foundation, a good strong foundation for this work going forward. So we would like you to adopt a set of values.

And then later we want to come back to you with a set of goals. And once we had the goals and values adopted, that set the framework for community engagement, for the policy sort of framework for this plan. the policy sort of framework for this plan. And then every time the community or a small group of people in the community tried to pull that work off track, we could go back and say to the city council, remember when you adopted these values and these goals, and this is a shared approach. And in the end, that resulted in a 12-1 vote. And when they adopted single family, the single family changes, or what we like to call the three-unit text amendment in Planner E's, when they adopted that a few weeks ago, that was a 13-0 vote. Wow.

So we are, I think we have built some conviction, the power of their convictions into this document. And I think they understand that this is primarily a leadership exercise, right? That this is more about how do we come together as a community to solve these bigger issues? How do we show up as leaders? And that's what they've just done magnificently. And so I see our role as staff is always to say, what is the information that they need? What's the best information we can give them so that they can make the best decision, right? And so that's what we were continually trying to meet is that need for the best, the highest quality data, the highest quality policy recommendations, and then utilizing that to make

the best decisions. Yeah. I mean, wow. What a wonderful vision. I mean, this feels like how our city governments are supposed to work is what you're describing. It's making my heart swell and it's making me wonder why every city in America can't have these same sort of changes. You know, we live in, I live in a city where, for instance, the city is currently cutting bus service, right? It's building train lines, which is wonderful. But at the same time, it's cutting bus service, which is, you know, means it's prioritizing the needs of the sort of, you know, wealthier people are going to live by the train lines versus the folks who rely on the bus. And these are our electeds who profess to have some of the values that you're talking about. But then when it comes time to actually make a vote on the board of the transit authority that

they run, it goes a different way. And so I wonder, is there some difference that you see in Minneapolis, something that allowed you to make these changes in addition to the wonderful work that you're all doing that helped you create this moment together where these changes were possible? Well, I think these things are always a confluence of events. I mean, if you look back in history, things have to get pretty bad before we do great things to solve them, right? I mean, that's true. So I think one of the things that's important to kind of raise up in this conversation is that we have had and have the deepest racial disparities in the nation here. And I think that's embarrassing for people. I think that Minnesotans look at that and say, you know what? That's not okay with us.

And I think that's a big part of why they were able to get this done. But I think it's also important in building understanding and education with our residents about those disparities and about the deep inequities in the community. And we started a conversation that initially was extremely uncomfortable. We don't talk about race in this country in a very constructive way, because we were taught as kids to not see race, to be colorblind, and that if you talked about race, you were being racist. And so I think that our sort of surfacing of that conversation and putting it front and center in this work was challenging for a lot of people. And we encountered a lot of fragility

in that conversation because we encountered people who just were not prepared to have that conversation. And so I think that's part of our challenge going forward is how do we keep that conversation going? Because if we can, I believe then we can solve some of these things. But that is very challenging for communities. And I think a lot of American cities are confronting this history right now, which is why it's sort of in the consciousness, right? Yeah. Well, let's talk about the rest of America's cities, right? I assume you... Let's not. Well, no, I mean, look, I noticed that people who care about urban planning and these issues are always sort of keeping an eye on the national map, right? Everyone's focusing on their own city, but it's sort of looking around at what's happening elsewhere. And that's why, you know, this plan that you've put in place in Minneapolis is sort of being heralded as a success.

Are you optimistic about the future of cities in America? Because so often, I worry we're running up against big plans meeting the reality And American cities are so interesting and so multilayered. And I'm extremely optimistic. Most cities are gaining population right now. Minneapolis hit our high of 500,000 in 1950. And then we sunk as low as just over 300,000. Wow. We're finally gaining population again in the last decade. And we believe that we will probably exceed the Census Bureau's estimates, but we will probably be half a million by 2040 again. And so we're a growing city, finally. And I think most cities in America are seeing kind of, I don't know if I would go as far as to call it a renaissance, but certainly seeing greater interest demographically in what they have to offer. And so I think this is a really

exciting time to be in city planning and especially in a big city. I do think what we did here is replicable, but I think it takes the commitment of elected officials to make it happen. I would just say something that every planner in America would probably agree with, which is we can do great plans, but in the end, they've got to adopt them and they've got to make them happen, make them come to life. And I know that I think most city planners in America have great goals and ideas and practices, but they don't always see the light of day. And so there is a sort of a relationship and a trust that needs to be built up between the staff and the elected officials in order to make these things happen. And we're blessed here that we had a council that really wanted to make that happen. Without that, it wouldn't have. And so I think that's, you can't forget that in this process. Yeah. And this is why I tell people so often focus on local politics, right? Pay attention to local politics. You know, this again, I keep bringing it back to the city where I live, but

our city council election is the same day as the Democratic primary. And I was out canvassing and, you know, everyone we talked to would say, are you planning on voting in the Democratic primary? Oh, yes, yes, of course. Of course I am. Of course I am. Well, do you know, everyone we talked to would say, are you planning on voting in the Democratic primary? Oh, yes, yes, of course. Of course I am. Of course I am. Well, do you know who's running for city council? No, I don't. I have no idea.

And, like, there's multiple candidates who have very different policies on things like transit, housing, all the issues that actually affect our lives to, I don't want to compare, but to a massive degree, a massive degree. And we spend so little time thinking about them. And we have so much more power in those, in that arena. Like if showing up to a city hall or a neighborhood council meeting or something like that, or going out and canvassing and flipping, you know, you go flip five votes canvassing for your favorite candidate. Well, those five votes matter a lot more than they do for president. So like the effects. Everything happens in your city, right? I mean, like I have said this to people before, but think about your day. Think about what happens in a typical day. You get up, you brush your teeth, you just turned on the tap, you used a city resource, you flush the toilet, you just used a

city resource to actually water and sewer. You go downstairs, you have breakfast. You know where you got the groceries that are in your refrigerator? You got them because you drove around on city roads or streets. You go to work. That employer you work for probably got some kind of incentive from your local government to be there, right? A lot of them do. And so really, our lives are just completely wrapped up in local government. They are and we should be totally focused on what's happening in our cities. It's so important. Well, I can't thank you enough for coming on here to tell us about what's happening in your city and for the amazing work that it sounds like you've been doing there.

And yeah, thank you so much for coming to tell us about it. Thank you so much, Heather. Thank you, Adam. Have a great day. You too. Well, thank you again to Heather for coming on the show. I hope you folks enjoyed that interview as much as I did. That is it for us this week on Factually. I'd like to thank our producer, Dana Wickens,

our researcher, Sam Roudman, our engineer, Ryan Connor, Andrew WK for our theme song. Hey, you can follow me on Twitter at Adam Conover. You can sign up for my mailing list at adamconover.net and see what else I've been up to. And that is it for us this week on Factually. Thanks for listening.

We'll see you again next week.