Shows
The Aesthetic City#46 - Coby Lefkowitz, part III: Building OptimismCoby Lefkowitz returns for his third appearance on The Aesthetic City Podcast. An urbanist, real estate developer, and writer based in New York, Coby is dedicated to crafting beautiful, walkable urban spaces. With his new book, Building Optimism: Why Our World Looks the Way it Does, and How to Make it Better, he explores the history of urban development and offers solutions for more humane cities. Coby continues to inspire with his vision for vibrant, timeless communities.Buy his book: Amazon (Physical and Kindle Editions): Amazon
2025-03-2158 min
CivicCastEpisode 11 - Coby Lefkowitz: Building OptimismOn this episode of CivicCast I chat with our upcoming CivicCon speaker, Coby LefkowitzCoby is the author of Building Optimism, which explores why American communities look the way they do, and offers a series of concrete reforms to make them more beautiful, desirable and affordable through dozens of project vignettes.Trained as an Urban Planner at the University of Virginia, Coby's work explores the intersection of development and urban design to promote more walkable, dynamic and sustainable communities. Coby will give a free CivicCon presentation on Monday, April 14 from 6:00 – 7:30 p.m. at...
2025-03-2045 min
Active TownsBuilding Optimism w/ Coby LefkowitzIn this episode, I connect with Coby Lefkowitz, author of Building Optimism, for a conversation about creating people-oriented communities, some of the Dutch cities that inspire his work, and why places like Santa Barbara look the way they do.#streetsareforpeople #allagesandabilities #bicycleinfrastructure #architecture #cityplanning Thank you so much for tuning in! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend and subscribe to the podcast on your preferred listening platform. Also, don't forget to check out the Active Towns Channel for more video content.Helpful Links (note that some may include...
2025-03-191h 02
The Building Culture Podcast#34 Coby Lefkowitz: Building Optimism - Rethinking Cities, Architecture, and the Future of Urban DesignWhat if our cities weren’t just places we lived, but places that made us feel alive? In this episode, we welcome back Coby, an urban planner, developer, and author of Building Optimism, to talk about how we can move beyond pessimism and reclaim the built environment. We dive into the philosophy of traditional urbanism versus traditional architecture, how to balance art and economics in development, and why optimism in city building isn’t just wishful thinking—it’s already happening.Coby shares how his latest project integrates affordability, beauty, and human-scale design, and why zoning reform is begin...
2025-02-061h 27
UpzonedWhy Massachusetts Might Sue Its Cities Over Zoning CodesIn 2021, Massachusetts signed a law requiring communities that are served by the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) to legalize multifamily housing development near MBTA transit stations. Recently, a state court ruled that the state has the authority to sue cities and towns that don’t comply.
In this episode of Upzoned, Abby and Chuck discuss whether that’s a good idea, the broader trend of states intervening in city zoning practices, and how the root issue is actually poor transportation investment practices.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
“Court Ruling Paves the Way For State to Sue Towns With E...
2025-01-2952 min
Econ Dev Show Podcast - Economic DevelopmentAn Optimistic Reimagining of the City with Coby LefkowitzIn this episode of the Econ Dev Show, host Dane Carlson sits down with Coby Lefkowitz, co-founder and partner at Backyard, a real estate development firm specializing in infill multifamily projects in walkable communities. Coby shares insights from his book "Building Optimism: Why Our World Looks the Way it Does, and How to Make it Better" and discusses how communities can evolve through better development practices, emphasizing the importance of context-specific solutions and the integration of mixed-use spaces in urban planning.
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2025-01-2039 min
good traffic.67 / Building optimism... & housing / with Coby LefkowitzCoby Lefkowitz is back in good traffic. Amidst leading Backyard in developing housing in Southern California (and tweeting up a pleasant storm), Coby has written a new book.
Building optimism is available now. We get into it, in this conversation.
We discuss:
00:00 Building Optimism: the new book.
02:12 The genesis of the book.
05:42 Challenges and realities of American urban development.
10:27 Historical inspirations and modern applications.
17:13 A younger generation of developers.
26:40 Civics and urban planning in...
2024-12-041h 01
good traffic.65 / Funding cuts, DOT mechanics, & Waymo optimism.Quick hits re: the federal-level implications of the recent election on transportation, housing, and urbanism in the U.S.
No political post-mortems or predictions, but rather look at existing policies and their potential impacts. Surface level breakdown of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), detailing the combined $566 billion in federal transportation spending through 2026. Heading into Thanksgiving, we also stress the importance of communicating urbanism ideas effectively across political divides at the family gathering.
The episode concludes with a clip from Pete Buttigieg discussing road safety goals, in comparison...
2024-11-2028 min
The REI Concierge PodcastCoby Lefkowitz: Urbanist and Optimist!Tim and Lisa talk with Coby Lefkowitz this week! Coby is an Urbanist and Developer with inspiring and optimistic ideas about the housing issues going on in the U.S. This is a super interesteing and inspiring conversation and we hope you enjoy it!Coby's website: https://cobylefkowitz.com/Article: Why small developers are getting squeezed out of the housing marketConnect with us:Schedule a call with TimSchedule a call with LisaSchedule a call with JeanLearn mo...
2024-07-1153 min
Animal Spirits PodcastTalk Your Book: Why We Don't Build Enough HousesOn today's show, Ben Carlson and Michael Batnick are joined by Coby Lefkowitz, Partner at Backyard to discuss why homebuilding has slowed, why building houses has become such a complex process, thoughts on start-up cities, Private Equity is not buying up all single family units, solutions to the housing crisis, and much more!Find complete show notes on our blogs...Ben Carlson’s A Wealth of Common SenseMichael Batnick’s The Irrelevant InvestorFeel free to shoot us an email at animalspirits@thecompoundnews.com with any feedback, ques...
2024-07-0639 min
Building Better: The SIPs RevolutionCity Planning With Coby LefkowitzIn this insightful episode, Coby Lefkowitz dives into the world of city planning and explores how SIPs are paving the way for the future of construction. Discover the transformative potential of Structural Insulated Panels in urban development.Learn more at: www.preflexinc.com Follow Coby: https://x.com/cobylefko?s=11&t=rMdiNtFickXF-s1XUhD0sQ
2024-06-2838 minUpzonedOur Financial System Favors Large-Scale Development…but at What Cost?On this week’s episode of Upzoned, host Abby Newsham and co-host Chuck Marohn are joined by Coby Lefkowitz, who penned the article that’s up for discussion: “Why small developers are getting squeezed out of the housing market.” It focuses on how finance shapes our cities, why debt is used to develop cities in the first place, how lenders deal with risk, and why risk mitigation is critical to understanding why the world looks the way it does. And, most notably, it dives into America's housing financial system and why it privileges large-scale institutional development at the expense of more...
2024-03-2052 min
YeomanCoby Lefkowitz: How real estate finance shapes what gets built and who builds it - Episode #5
Coby's guest post on Noahpinion: "Why small developers are getting squeezed out of the housing market"
Coby on Twitter
Coby's website
Coby's business
Coby's interview on Building Culture
2024-03-121h 27
The Building Culture Podcast#10 Coby Lefkowitz: Beliefs Inform Building; Personal Agency; Creating a Better World for AllI'm thrilled to have Coby Lefkowitz on the show today. Coby is an urbanist, real estate developer, writer, and consultant based in New York, and I would add, all around optimist. I've been following him on X for several years, and while it was our first conversation it felt like we had known each other much longer. We are saving the technical conversation on building and development for a time down the road, and today we really focused on the culture around building well and the obstacles that come with it. We both share this idea, in a lot...
2024-02-221h 38
good traffic.16 / Building gentle density & beautiful neighborhoods / with developer Coby LefkowitzCoby Lefkowitz — developer, writer, urbanist, and tweeter — is in good traffic to discuss the longstanding distrust of the big, bad developer in the urbanism conversation, and how partnership (versus vilification) is the pathway to building better places.
Coby is the Founder of Backyard — a development group focused on gentle density in great American cities.
We discuss:
01:43 Getting into urban development as a twenty-something.
06:57 Contextualizing the role of developers in urban planning.
16:45 What is ‘gentle density?’
17:03 Coby’s blossoming operation: Backyard.
21:41 The importance of simple beauty in the built environment...
2024-01-0247 min
Weiss AdviceRomantic Pragmatism In Creating Sustainable Neighborhoods With Coby LefkowitzSend us a textWhy is it important to have a passion for what you want to do? In this episode of Weiss Advice, we welcome Coby Lefkowitz. Coby Lefkowitz is a real estate developer, writer, and thought leader in the world of urban planning and development. Based in New York, and in addition to his own projects at his firm Backyard, Coby works with people and cities worldwide to create more beautiful, walkable, sustainable, and dynamic communities for all. Coby tries to marry romantic ways of looking at the world with how to actually implement them...
2023-07-1633 min
XplanecitysketchXCS 20 // Quando il mondo fa zig…Il mondo odierno è molto simile ed uguale ovunque andiamo.
Se ci limitiamo, peró, a dire che il mondo moderno è uguale a se stesso ed orribile, diventiamo pessimisti e la cosa è piuttosto triste;
Se abbiamo qualcosa di positivo a cui guardare,
qualcosa di originale da cercare o fare, non solo ci sentiamo meglio con il mondo che ci circonda, ma ci sentiamo anche più fiduciosi per il futuro".
Come dice l'agenzia pubblicitaria BBH in una sua famosa campagna…..
Quando il mondo fa zig … tu fai zag.
Xplanecitysketch è un podcast prodotto da AdHoc Voice scritto e letto da Enrico Fabbri
.
La cura editoriale...
2023-07-0700 minXplanecitysketchXCS_20 // Quando il mondo fa zig…Il mondo odierno è molto simile ed uguale ovunque andiamo.
Se ci limitiamo, peró, a dire che il mondo moderno è uguale a se stesso ed orribile, diventiamo pessimisti e la cosa è piuttosto triste;
Se abbiamo qualcosa di positivo a cui guardare,
qualcosa di originale da cercare o fare, non solo ci sentiamo meglio con il mondo che ci circonda, ma ci sentiamo anche più fiduciosi per il futuro".
Come dice l'agenzia pubblicitaria BBH in una sua famosa campagna…..
Quando il mondo fa zig … tu fai zag.
Xplanecitysketch è un podcast prodotto da AdHoc Voice
Scritto e letto da Enrico Fabbri
.
La cura editoriale...
2023-07-0700 min
adhoc voiceXCS_20 // Quando il mondo fa zig...Il mondo odierno è molto simile ed uguale ovunque andiamo.
Se ci limitiamo, peró, a dire che il mondo moderno è uguale a se stesso ed orribile, diventiamo pessimisti e la cosa è piuttosto triste;
Se abbiamo qualcosa di positivo a cui guardare,
qualcosa di originale da cercare o fare, non solo ci sentiamo meglio con il mondo che ci circonda, ma ci sentiamo anche più fiduciosi per il futuro".
Come dice l'agenzia pubblicitaria BBH in una sua famosa campagna…..
Quando il mondo fa zig … tu fai zag.
2023-07-0107 min
The Lavendaire Lifestyle220: Building Better Communities with Coby LefkowitzMany of us dream of a world where we don’t have to rely on cars to get around everywhere. The long commutes can take a toll on you and your relationships overtime. How can we make the world better not just for ourselves but the whole community? Join our conversation with Coby Lefkowitz as we explore how we can build better communities together and how it all starts by simply talking with each other.
Coby Lefkowitz is a real estate developer, writer, and thought leader in the worlds of urban planning and development. Based in New York, an...
2023-02-191h 02The Aesthetic City#17 - Coby Lefkowitz, Backyard, Part 2: Highrise, Densification, Organic Growth & the Value of Building BeautifullyCoby Lefkowitz is an urbanist, developer and writer living in New York City. He was a real estate analyst, but left his company to co-found Backyard, a real estate startup. He studied urban and environmental planning at the University of Virginia and writes for the Metropolis column for Medium.
In this second interview with Coby we discuss the topic of highrise in various contexts, NIMBYism and densification, organic growth of cities as complex systems versus planned developments, the value of building beauty and the involvement of communities in building places they love, and much more.
...
2022-08-011h 05
The Aesthetic City#8 - Coby Lefkowitz, Backyard: Creating Beautiful Places as a Developer, Achieving Better Urbanism in the United StatesCoby Lefkowitz is an urbanist, developer and writer living in New York City. He was a real estate analyst, but left his company to co-found Backyard, a real estate startup. He studied urban and environmental planning at the University of Virginia and writes for the Metropolis column for Medium.
In this episode we have a great talk on the differences between the European and American urban planning context, Coby talks about what challenges developers face to achieve something more than spreadsheet architecture, the challenge of parking requirements, combatting sprawl and much more. Don't be surprised to see...
2022-05-191h 04
American BuildingCoby Lefkowitz of Backyard | Nile Street in San Diego | Accessory Dwelling UnitsCoby Lefkowitz, the co-founder of Backyard, a real estate development company focusing on infill development in Southern California, joins us to discuss the topic of Accessory Dwelling Units — also known as ADUs. These relatively inexpensive homes can be used to help ease the burden of the current housing market by providing more affordable options. Coby shares with us some of his thoughts on underlying ADU legislation and smaller infill development projects. In today’s episode, we also discuss Coby’s 3322 Nile Street project in San Diego. Located in the heart of Altadena, the neighborhood features mostly cozy homes w...
2022-03-0154 min