For Chris Miller, it’s all about community capital.

Chris is chair and one of the founding board members of the National Coalition for Community Capital - or NC3. They are leading the charge to strengthen local economies by empowering ordinary citizens through community investment and ownership.

Chris has been working on community, economic, and entrepreneur development in Michigan for nearly 20 years, in roles as varied as city official, board chair and Innovation Fellow. As the City of Adrian’s economic developer he secured millions of grant dollars and matching private investments. But he also developed a local investor group and championed Michigan’s MILE – an investment crowdfunding exemption that served as a national model.

It’s all about community capital for Chris.

If you'd like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do. Share this podcast and go to RethinkRealEstateForGood.co where you can subscribe to be the first to hear about my podcasts, blog posts and other goodies.

Early in her career, very early, Katie McCamant visited Copenhagen. She was an architecture student studying abroad. In Copenhagen she learned of a new housing model called co-housing -- a small intentional community of private homes clustered around a shared space. Common space usually includes a large kitchen, dining area and other common facilities, but will vary depending on each communities’ wants and needs. This was a brand new concept with just 8 projects built in Copenhagen and nowhere else in the world.

Katie was wowed. She was interested in housing in architecture and this model made so much sense to her. So she wrote a couple of books and built a career on helping people build their own cohousing community, advising them from soup to nuts.

If you'd like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do. Share this podcast and go to RethinkRealEstateForGood.co where you can subscribe to be the first to hear about my podcasts, blog posts and other goodies.

As mayor of Salt Lake County a decade ago, Ben McAdams was frustrated that there wasn’t $500,000 in a $1.3 billion annual budget for a promising early childhood education program.

Not one to permit defeat, he decided to map the value of the city’s underutilized real estate. And that yielded an impressive number: All of a sudden the city had $45 billion on its balance sheet. “I found out there is actually money under our mattress,” Ben says. “It's real estate that is just forgotten.”

Since then Ben has spent time in politics as mayor, senator and congressman. But now he’s launched an incubator to help cities map their public assets, much like he did a decade ago, providing a path to solve issues that need money - like affordable housing and homelessness.

Every city should listen in.

If you'd like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do. Share this podcast and go to RethinkRealEstateForGood.co where you can subscribe to be the first to hear about my podcasts, blog posts and other goodies.