Realtopia - Real Estate for Teens

Can one piece of infrastructure reconnect a city — and what happens when that idea becomes more successful than anyone expected?

Naomi sits down with Ryan Gravel, the urban designer whose graduate thesis became the Atlanta BeltLine, a 22-mile loop connecting 45 neighborhoods around Atlanta.

Ryan explains how a year in Paris inspired the idea, why he calls the BeltLine “catalyst infrastructure,” and how abandoned rail corridors became a new way for neighborhoods to connect. He also speaks candidly about what the project got wrong: missing transit, affordability challenges, and why he believes stronger commitments should have come before the trail moved ahead.

In this episode:

• How Paris inspired the BeltLine
• What “catalyst infrastructure” means
• Whether the BeltLine caused Atlanta’s growth
• Why belonging is difficult to measure
• What Ryan learned from the project’s equity challenges
• Why transit was always essential
• What he would change today
• How infrastructure can give teenagers more independence

A conversation about infrastructure, connection, and the responsibility that comes with changing a city.

Realtopia is hosted by Naomi Cohen.

Most cities were designed as if everyone were 30 years old, athletic, healthy, and able to drive. What would change if every street, park, library, and neighborhood had to work for an 8-year-old and an 80-year-old?

Naomi sits down with Gil Peñalosa, founder of 8 80 Cities and one of the world's leading voices on public space. As Commissioner of Parks in Bogotá, Colombia, Gil built or rebuilt more than 200 parks and helped transform the city's Ciclovía from a struggling Sunday bike event into more than 75 miles of open streets where over a million people can walk, bike, run, and simply be together. He has since worked in more than 350 cities around the world.

Gil explains why he judges a city by who is able to use it independently: children walking to school, older adults outside, women cycling, teenagers getting around without needing a ride. For him, autonomy is one of the clearest signs that a neighborhood is working.

They discuss 20 mph neighborhood streets, wide sidewalks, short crossings, benches, shade, trees, and why every neighborhood should have a quality park within a short walk. But Gil also argues that infrastructure is only half the story: cities need the "software" too — programming, activities, and reasons for people of every age to actually use those spaces.

Naomi and Gil also explore the harder questions: why citywide averages can hide enormous inequality between neighborhoods, why public spaces should be equally good regardless of income, and why teenagers may be one of the groups most poorly served by the way cities are designed today.

In this episode:

• The 8 80 test — and why cities should work for both an 8-year-old and an 80-year-old
• How Bogotá's Ciclovía turned streets into places where people meet as equals
• Why children moving independently are one of the clearest signs a neighborhood works
• 20 mph streets, wide sidewalks, short crossings, benches, and trees
• Why belonging should be measured at the neighborhood level, not just citywide
• Parks as an equalizer — and why every neighborhood needs access to good public space
• "Hardware and software": why programming matters as much as infrastructure
• Why schools could become the heart of neighborhoods after hours
• What a city designed for a 15-year-old would look like
• Why young people should move from talking to doing

A conversation about autonomy, equity, and how cities can use both better design and better programming to create belonging.

Realtopia is hosted by Naomi Cohen.

Can something as personal as loving where you live actually be measured?

Naomi sits down with Dr. Katherine Loflin, known as The City Doctor and a pioneer of place science. At the Knight Foundation, Katherine led the Soul of the Community study with Gallup — three years of research across 26 communities and more than 40,000 interviews asking two deceptively simple questions: What makes people love where they live, and why does it matter? 

The results were remarkably consistent. The strongest drivers of attachment were not jobs, schools, or basic services, but three softer qualities: social offerings, aesthetics, and openness. And communities with higher attachment also showed stronger local economic growth. Katherine explains the behaviors behind that connection: people who love where they live tend to spend more time there, invest more locally, invite others in, buy homes, start businesses, and put down roots. 

Naomi and Katherine explore why something as emotional as feeling welcome can be influenced by very physical things — sidewalks, bike safety, transportation, affordability — and what Miami taught researchers about the gap between how a place actually performs and how people perceive it.

They also discuss why city rankings can never fully tell you where you will feel at home, how local history and storytelling can deepen attachment, how COVID changed the role of social connection, and why young people may need to “date” different places before deciding where they belong. 

In this episode:

• What the Soul of the Community study discovered about loving where you live
• Why social offerings, aesthetics, and openness matter so much
• How attachment can translate into local economic activity
• Why sidewalks, bike safety, and affordability can signal whether people are welcome
• What Miami revealed about perception versus reality
• Why a city can check every box and still not feel like home
• How stories and local history can create attachment
• What COVID taught us about social capital
• Why young people are “dating” their cities — and what might make them stay

A conversation about the science behind loving a place — and the limits of trying to capture that feeling in a number.

Realtopia is hosted by Naomi Cohen.

Can you learn to love where you live — or are some places simply a better fit than others?

Naomi sits down with Melody Warnick, journalist and author of This Is Where You Belong and If You Could Live Anywhere. After moving six times by her mid-30s, Melody arrived in Blacksburg, Virginia — and initially wanted to leave. Instead, she began experimenting with what researchers call place attachment: the feeling of being deeply at home where you live.

She tried walking more, buying local, meeting neighbors, volunteering, exploring nature, and becoming a regular at a local restaurant — an experiment that completely failed. Over time, those small efforts changed how she experienced her town.

Naomi and Melody explore why social connection, openness, and the way a place looks matter so much; why simply knowing your neighbors can create trust; and why sidewalks, cafés, parks, events, murals, and even front porches can create opportunities for belonging.

They also ask a harder question: how much of belonging comes from the place, and how much comes from what we choose to do with it? And if you could live anywhere, should you search for the “best” place — or the place that fits you best?

In this episode:

• What place attachment is — and why it matters
• The experiments that helped Melody learn to love Blacksburg
• Why knowing your neighbors builds trust and belonging
• How much belonging comes from you vs. the place itself
• Why murals, events, porches, and other “love notes” reveal attachment
• How to choose where to live when you really can live anywhere

A conversation about turning somewhere you live into somewhere that feels like home.
Realtopia is hosted by Naomi Cohen.

What turns a space into a place — and can belonging actually be designed?

Naomi sits down with Ethan Kent, Executive Director and co-founder of PlacemakingX, a global network of more than 1,500 placemakers in over 85 countries. Before that, Ethan spent more than 20 years at Project for Public Spaces and has worked in and studied places across more than 1,000 cities around the world.

From the cheap beach chairs that helped transform Times Square to markets, main streets, and neighborhood gathering places, Ethan explains why great places are built around purpose, meaning, and people — not just architecture.

They discuss why sociability may be the most important measure of a public space, why cities should aim to be lovable rather than simply livable, and why successful placemaking starts with life first, then space, then buildings.

In this episode:

• What turns a space into a place
• How beach chairs helped transform Times Square
• Why sociability matters more than beautiful design
• The Power of 10 and why people need reasons to stay
• Why “lovable” may matter more than “livable”
• Place-led development vs. “place taking”
• Why physical design can create the potential for belonging, but not belonging itself
• Why teenagers have been designed out of many cities

A conversation about how people shape places — and how places, in turn, shape community. Realtopia is hosted by Naomi Cohen.

Can the places we live actually make us trust each other more?

Naomi sits down with Charles Montgomery — journalist, author of Happy City, founder of Happy Cities, and author of the new book The Trust Experiments: Rebuilding Connection in a World Designed to Divide Us.

More than a decade after Happy City, Charles explores how cities shape not just our happiness, but our relationships with one another — and why housing, public spaces, screens, transportation, and even the people we encounter every day can influence whether we feel connected or alone.

In this episode:
• How cities shape happiness and belonging
• Why affordability affects connection
• Density, housing and the right social scale
• How screens and cities can deepen isolation
• Why public spaces can build social trust
• How young people can help reshape their cities

A conversation about a simple but powerful idea: the places we build shape the relationships we build.

What if the reason your neighborhood looks the way it does — who lives there, what gets built, and how expensive it feels — isn't random?

In this episode of Realtopia, Naomi sits down with Nolan Gray — city planner, Research Director at California YIMBY, and author of Arbitrary Lines — to unpack the invisible rules shaping our cities.

Together, they explore one of the biggest questions facing this generation: if we build more housing, do people actually feel more connected to where they live?

In this episode:

• What zoning really controls
• The ideas behind the YIMBY movement
• Housing, affordability, and displacement
• Whether abundance creates belonging
• Rethinking suburbs and neighborhood identity
• What makes a place feel like home

Why does one city feel instantly recognizable while another could be almost anywhere?

In this episode of Realtopia, Naomi sits down with Professor Greg Clark — advisor to more than 400 cities across six continents, author, and co-host of The DNA of Cities — to explore what gives places their identity and why the most successful cities of the future may not be the ones that grow fastest, but the ones that become more fully themselves.

Together, they unpack the idea of a city’s DNA — the combination of inherited geography, historical choices, culture, institutions, and new adaptations that shape how places evolve. The conversation moves from global competition to local belonging, asking a bigger question: How do we build cities people can actually imagine staying in?

In this episode:

• The DNA of a city: endowed, inherited, and acquired traits
• Why global sameness is the great risk to cities
• Turin and the cities that defy their reputation
• Building a belonging index: social capital and the social contract
• Affordability vs. global competitiveness and the case for 50% affordable housing
• Climate, AI, and the just transition

Why do some spaces instantly feel right — while others never quite do?

In this episode of Realtopia, Naomi sits down with Dr. Toby Israel — environmental psychologist, founder of Design Psychology, and author of Some Place Like Home and Designing Women's Lives — to explore how our earliest experiences of place quietly shape the homes we choose, the spaces we create, and even what makes us feel like we belong.

Together, they unpack the idea of an environmental autobiography: the hidden story of childhood places, family environments, and memories that can still influence our design choices decades later. Instead of asking what makes a place beautiful, this conversation asks a different question: what makes a place feel like yours?

In this episode:

• What Design Psychology is — and why psychology can become the primary design tool
• Environmental autobiography and the idea of an environmental family tree
• Why people often recreate — or reject — the homes they grew up in
• How unconscious place memories shape layouts, colors, and objects
• Whether Pinterest, algorithms, and AI are disconnecting us from real preferences
• How renters can still personalize temporary spaces
• What traditional “belonging” metrics may miss about emotional experience of place
• Why two people can experience the exact same place completely differently

What if the housing crisis isn’t just about prices — but about a century of rules that quietly erased some of the most affordable ways people used to live?

In this episode of Realtopia, Naomi speaks with Professor Marc Norman, Associate Dean of NYU Schack, about what’s broken in the housing system — and what it would take to fix it.

Marc explains why affordable housing is often misunderstood, how postwar zoning rules made duplexes, fourplexes, and other “missing middle” housing nearly illegal, and why those choices helped shape today’s homeownership crisis. They explore new ideas like neighborhood REITs, community wealth building, and shared ownership models that could broaden access to real estate wealth.

The conversation also examines gentrification and displacement, the role of community development finance, why affordability and beauty are not a trade-off, and how reforms like California upzoning and New York’s City of Yes may be reopening possibilities.

One of the episode’s most original moments comes when Naomi asks Marc what a Belonging Index might include — leading to a discussion about walkability, freedom from car dependence, and whether a neighborhood gives people real choices as life changes.

They close with a message for younger generations who feel locked out of ownership: housing is not only shaped by markets, but by people who show up.

They discuss:
• The hidden history behind the homeownership crisis
• Missing-middle housing and zoning reform
• Neighborhood REITs, co-ops, and community wealth building
• Gentrification, displacement, and protecting vulnerable residents
• Walkability, belonging, and the idea of a Belonging Index
• Why civic engagement can shape what gets built