The Urban Lab – Details, episodes & analysis

Employers added 943,000 jobs in July, the highest monthly tally since August of last year. Unemployment is down and wages are up as the labor market tightens further, extending its recovery from the pandemic's initial, very deep losses.

To parse the new data, Sam Chandan is joined by Dr. Marianne Wanamaker, Professor of Economics at the University of Tennessee Knoxville's Haslam College of Business, Executive Director of the Baker Center for Public Policy, and former Chief Economist for the Domestic Economy at the White House Council of Economic Advisors, where she was also the nation's senior-most labor economist.

The monthly labor market analysis is produced in collaboration with LaborIQ by ThinkWhy, a leading provider of analytical tools for data-driven recruiting, hiring, and compensation planning.

To learn more about the Urban Lab, visit SamChandan.com and follow Sam Chandan on Twitter at SamChandan.

Employers added 559,00 jobs in May, moving the headline unemployment rate to its lowest level since before the pandemic. Even so, May's numbers fell short of expectations and follow on a downside surprise in hiring in April.

To parse the new data, Sam Chandan is joined by Dr. Marianne Wanamaker, Professor of Economics at the University of Tennessee Knoxville's Haslam College of Business and former Chief Economist for the Domestic Economy at the White House Council of Economic Advisors, where she was also the nation's senior-most labor economist.

The monthly labor market analysis is presented by LaborIQ by ThinkWhy, a leading provider of analytical tools for data-driven recruiting, hiring, and compensation planning.

To learn more about the Urban Lab, visit SamChandan.com and follow Sam Chandan on Twitter at SamChandan.

Steven Pedigo, Director of the LBJ Urban Lab at the University of Texas at Austin and Non-Resident Fellow at the NYU Urban Lab, joins Sam Chandan to discuss A Playbook for Resiliency, co-authored with Kirk Watson, Dean of the Hobby School at the University of Houston, former Mayor of Austin, and former State Senator for the Austin region.  Professor Pedigo discusses recommendations for Texas' long-term growth strategy, how those recommendations can inform policymaking in cities across the country, and which cities are best-positioned to attract businesses and jobs in the post-pandemic environment.

For more information about the Urban Lab podcast and Dr. Sam Chandan, please visit samchandan.com/urbanlab. Follow Sam and the Urban Lab on Twitter at SamChandan and UrbanLabPodcast.

This segment was produced with research assistance by Peter Mattingly, Adjunct Instructor of Real Estate at NYU Schack.

Buoyed by the strongest new home sales market since before the Great Financial Crisis, homebuilder sentiment climbed to record levels in August, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). The housing tailwinds prevailing over drags from the labor market include historically low interest rates and a surge in buyer traffic, attributable at least in part to families exploring relocation from urban apartments.

Dr. Robert Dietz, Chief Economist of the National Association of Home Builders and previously of the United States Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, joins Sam Chandan to discuss homebuilding and the housing market forecast. Among the risks to the outlook, they explore sharp increases in the cost of lumber and other building materials, as well as shortages in the availability of skilled labor, all of which are constraining supply, exerting upward pressure on home prices, and placing homeownership out of reach for many American families. Rising lumber prices in particular, owing significantly to US tariffs on imports from Canada, are estimated to be adding $14,000 to the price of a typical new single-family home.

For more information about NAHB and the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, visit the NAHB on the web. Rob's analysis of the market can be found in Eye on Housing and on his Twitter feed at @dietz_econ. 

For more information about the Urban Lab podcast and Dr. Sam Chandan, please visit http://www.samchandan.com/urbanlab. Follow Sam  and the Urban Lab on Twitter at SamChandan and UrbanLabPodcast.

Noerena Limón from the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP) and Ben Metcalf from the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley, join Sam Chandan to discuss the increasing challenges facing small apartment building owners and the communities they serve.  They discuss the findings of a new joint survey, which shows one in four small landlords has borrowed to cover expenses since the beginning of the pandemic. Further deterioration in rent collection following the expiration of enhanced unemployment benefits threatens property owner' capacity to meet operating expenses as well as mortgage payments and property taxes.

Noerena Limón is Senior Vice President of Public Policy at NAHREP. She was previously with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Office of Political Affairs at the White House during the Obama Administration.

Ben Metcalf is Managing Director of Berkeley’s Terner Center. He was  Deputy Assistant Secretary at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development during the Obama Administration. Following his term at HUD, Ben was head of the California Department of Housing and Community Development under Governor Jerry Brown.

The report cited in this segment can be found on the NAHREP website and Terner Center website.

For more information about the Urban Lab podcast and Dr. Sam Chandan, please visit http://www.samchandan.com/urbanlab. Follow Sam Chandan and the Urban Lab on Twitter at SamChandan and UrbanLabPodcast. This episode was produced with research assistance from Peter Mattingly, Adjunct Instructor of Real Estate at the NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate.

Mitch Roschelle, Co-Publisher and Co-Chair of the ULI Emerging Trends in Real Estate report and Partner at PwC and Co-Chair of the firm's Real Estate Practice, joins Sam Chandan to discuss conditions in the commercial real estate market, the outlook for retail and office space demand, the competitive position of core urban areas in a post-pandemic world, and the persistence of historically low interest rates. 

For over 40 years, the Emerging Trends in Real Estate report has been amongst the most respected and widely read global surveys of real estate industry leader sentiment and expectations. According to ULI, the report "includes interviews and survey responses from more than 2,200 leading real estate experts, including investors, fund managers, developers, property companies, lenders, brokers, advisers and consultants."

For more information about the Urban Lab podcast and Dr. Sam Chandan, please visit http://www.samchandan.com/urbanlab.

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has played a critical role in the nation’s coronavirus pandemic response and in managing challenges to housing stability for both homeowners and renters impacted by the crisis. That support has taken myriad forms, ranging from forbearance for homeowners with federally backed loans to Ginnie Mae’s interventions to support liquidity in the mortgage-backed securities market.

To discuss HUD's response to the crisis, Sam Chandan is joined by the Honorable Seth Appleton, Assistant Secretary for Policy Development & Research at HUD and head of Ginnie Mae; and Alfonso Costa, Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary Ben Carson and HUD's agency lead for the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council. The Council is the oversight body for the Opportunity Zone program, which provides new paths for  investment in historically underserved communities.

Program Notes

Information for homeowners, renters, and housing providers on HUD's pandemic response programs can be found at hud.gov/coronavirus.

Information about the Opportunity Zone program can be found at OpportunityZones.gov.

IRS Notice 2020-39—Relief for Qualified Opportunity Funds and Investors Affected by Ongoing Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic

Few corporate location decisions have generated as much excitement or controversy as Amazon’s search for HQ2. More than 200 cities across North America entered into a frenzied bidding war to become the tech giant’s next home, with New York City and Arlington, Virginia ultimately sharing the prize in late 2018. Just a few months later, Amazon cancelled its plans for New York in the face of a backlash that divided New Yorkers.

To recount the story of HQ2 and the lessons for cities, as well as the recent decision by Sidewalk Labs to abandon its plans for a smart city in Toronto, Sam Chandan is joined by Richard Florida, University Professor at the University of Toronto and Distinguished Fellow at Schack’s Urban Lab, and Matthew Kwatinetz, Director of the Urban Lab. Florida was involved in preparing Toronto's bid for HQ2 while Kwatinetz was Executive Vice President of the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYC EDC) at the time.

This episode includes excerpts from Sam Chandan's and Richard Florida's NYU class, Global Cities in a Post-Pandemic World, and has been edited for content and length.

For more information about the Urban Lab podcast and Dr. Sam Chandan, please visit http://www.samchandan.com/urbanlab. 

Brian Ward, CEO of Trimont and a member of the Board of Advisors at the NYU Schack Institute and Harvard Business School, joins Sam Chandan to discuss the rise in commercial real estate mortgage delinquencies and what happens when borrowers are unable to make their monthly mortgage payments. They discuss the role of forbearance and the uncertainties confounding the outlook for office, hotel, and retail properties. They conclude the conversation with Ward's observations on the role of industry leaders as mentors for young professionals entering the workforce during a period of crisis.

For more information about the Urban Lab podcast and Dr. Sam Chandan, please visit http://www.samchandan.com/urbanlab.

Renowned urbanist Richard Florida joins Sam Chandan to discuss the future of cities as well as the social and economic forces contributing to protests taking place across the world following the death of George Floyd.

Dr. Richard Florida is Distinguished Fellow at the NYU SPS Schack Institute's Urban Lab, University Professor at the University of Toronto Rotman School of Management, and Founder and Editor-at-Large at CityLab. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling Rise of the Creative Class, as well as The Great Reset and The New Urban Crisis.

This podcast includes excerpts from Sam Chandan's and Richard Florida's NYU class, Global Cities in a Post-Pandemic World, and has been edited for content and length.

For more information about the Urban Lab podcast and Dr. Sam Chandan, please visit http://www.samchandan.com/urbanlab.