CitySCOPE Podcast

April 13, 2026 live recording of the CitySCOPE podcast with a community audience in New Haven, CT featuring guests Richard Townsell and Whittney Smith from LCDC in Chicago and Sandra Lobo from Our Bronx in New York for the event Future City: Community Control of Real Estate. 

Childcare is essential to the productivity of the economy locally and nationally. Often overlooked in conversations about infrastructure, in episode 10, we explore the idea of childcare as essential infrastructure. With Jessica Sager, Co-Founder and CEO of All Our Kin , we discuss childcare systems - or really non-systems and how recent legislation has sought to develop a functioning system, but h...

In episode 9, we feature a wide ranging conversation with Elihu Rubin, Associate Professor at the Yale School of Architecture .  We discuss both the market and power dynamics at play in decisions for remaking the city over time. With Faye Phillips as host, topics include: the crisis of the post-industrial city, the Prudential Center in Boston as both architectural form and symbol, the Goffe Street...

In episode 8, we learn about a new economic development tool called a neighborhood trust. Joined by  Adriana Abizadeh, Executive Director of the Kensington Corridor Trust in Philadelphia , and  Joe Margulies, Professor of Law and Government at Cornell University , we will explore the theory behind neighborhood trusts and the work underway in Philadelphia to set up one of the country's first commun...

In episode 7, we discuss the role that community development corporations (CDCs) play in constructing communities with  Jeremy Levine, Associate Professor of Organizational Studies and Sociology (by courtesy) at the University of Michigan and author of C onstructing Community: Urban Governance, Development, and Inequality in Boston . Topics include: the role that CDCs have in local development pro...

In episode 6, we explore zoning policy with Sara Bronin, Professor of the Cornell College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, and Associated Faculty Member of the Cornell Law School (on public service leave).  Sara Bronin is a Mexican-American architect and attorney whose interdisciplinary research focuses on how law and policy can foster more equitable, sustainable, well-designed, and connected p...

Co-hosts   Joanne Jan  and  Sherry Li  are back with our guests  Karen Chapple of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto  and  Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning & Interim Dean of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs  to continue our discussion on transit-oriented development (TOD). In episode 5, we dive into one of the hypothesized unintended con...

The next two episodes feature conversations with Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning & Interim Dean of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs , and  Karen Chapple of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto . These are two giants in the field of urban planning and innovative scholars in their approach to the study of cities. We will be exploring the pr...

In episode 3, we speak with Lisa Berglund , Professor of Urban Planning at Dalhousie University to continue our exploration of community benefit agreements. This time, we take a closer look at CBAs in a specific context - Detroit. Detroit was the first U.S. city to have a CBA ordinance requiring CBAs for all development over a certain size. We learn how Detroit utilizes community benefit agreement...

In episode 2 of Season 4, we are joined by Virginia Parks , Professor at University of California Irvine , and Roxana Tynan , Executive Director of the Los Angeles Alliance for New Economy (LAANE)  for a conversation about community benefit agreements. Steven Waller and Alice Yuan co-host.  The episode describes the history and mechanics of CBAs, tracing their roots in early 2000s Los Angeles and...

Season 4 of the CitySCOPE podcast features conversations with academics, urban planners, developers and community leaders weighing in on different mechanisms to drive more equitable development through infrastructure development.  The season is organized around questions such as: How have communities organized to ensure that the community benefits from new development, who speaks for the community...

Meeting the Moment with Inclusive Economic Development Sharing the audio from our first live podcasting event! February 10, 2023 from NXTHVN in Dixwell. To celebrate the bridge from the end of Season 3 to the launch of Season 4, we held a live event bringing together  Stanley Tucker, President, CEO and co-founder of Meridian Management Company, Inc (MMG) featured in Season 3 with  Adriana Abizadeh...

In our final episode for Season 3 of the CitySCOPE podcast, we have a bonus episode produced in collaboration with James Johnson-Piett and Maggie Clark from Urbane, featuring interviews from Urbane's work on the Philadelphia Equitable Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Assessment and Strategy report, completed in May 2021.  Over the course of this season, we spoke with researchers, historians, practitione...

In episode 14 of the CitySCOPE podcast, we speak with  Dianna Tremblay and Caron Gugssa-Howard from ICA in Oakland, CA about their work building a more equitable entrepreneurial ecosystem through accelerator and investment fund programing.  Topics include: pathways to growth in the dynamic Bay area economy, using a venture-capital CDFI model to develop an accelerator targeting entrepreneurs from l...

Join us for episode 13 of the CitySCOPE podcast.  We speak with  Banu Ozkazanc-Pan ,  Professor of Practice at the School of Engineering  and  Academic Director of the IE Brown University EMBA program . She is also the  Founder and Director of the Venture Capital Inclusion Lab  at the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship.  In conversation with Kate Cooney, Senior Lecturer at Yale University School o...

In episode 12 of the CitySCOPE podcast, Kate Cooney, Senior Lecturer at the Yale School of Management, talks with  Donna Lecky, JD, MBA, Managing Partner, Health Venture Capital, CEO & Co-Founder, Health Venture and Co-Founder & Board Director of HealthHavenHub, Inc.   Donna is also CEO & Founding Member of Women of Color Capital Collective, Inc.  Join us for a wide-ranging conversation about Donn...

In episode 11 of the CitySCOPE podcast, Kate Cooney, faculty at the Yale School of Management, speaks with  Marissa King, Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Yale School of Management  about her book  Social Chemistry: Decoding the Elements of Human Connection.     Topics include: networks and why they matter, different types of social networks, a tool to assess your social network, why th...

Join us for episode 10 of the CitySCOPE podcast where Kate Cooney, faculty at the Yale School of Management, speaks with  Brian Argrett, President & CEO of City First Bank and Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Broadway Financial Corporation.    Topics include: the merger of City First and Broadway Financial to form the largest Black-led bank in the United States, the consolidation of the...

In Episode 9 of the CitySCOPE podcast Kate Cooney, faculty at the Yale School of Management, speaks with Topiltzin Gomez, Chief of Staff at Honeycomb Credit.  Our conversation focuses on the decline of the community banking sector, the Jobs Act of 2012, the rise of crowdfunding, and the ways that community capital can be deployed for local small business investment.  Topiltzin shares his journey t...

In Episode 8 of the CitySCOPE podcast Kate Cooney, faculty at the Yale School of Management, speaks with  Kylie Jiwon Hwang, Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford Graduate School of Business.   Kylie's research lies at the intersection of entrepreneurship, discrimination and labor markets.  Our conversation focuses on her dissertation research examining entrepreneurship and employment for formerly incar...

Episode 7 of the CitySCOPE podcast features a conversation with Kate Cooney and  Boris Sigal, Co-Executive Director of the Community Purchasing Alliance (CPA) .  Boris graduated from the Yale School of Management in 2014.  Post-graduation, Boris worked for a number of years in New Haven, first in a special one-year position created between the New Haven City Economic Development Administration and...

In Episode 6 of the CitySCOPE podcast Kate Cooney speaks with  Marcia Chatelain, Professor of History and African American Studies at Georgetown University  about her Pulitzer Prize winning book  Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America.  Topics include: McDonald's trajectory from regional to national franchiser, McDonald's as a site of Civil Rights social movement activity, the fight for the...

In Episode 5 of the CitySCOPE podcast we share the interview with  Stanley Tucker, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Meridian Management Company, Inc (MMG).   Stanley has been in the business of supporting and scaling minority and women owned businesses for fifty years. Stanley began his career as Director of the Maryland Small Business Development Financing Authority, building the organiz...

Join us for Episode 4 of the CitySCOPE podcast where we continue our exploration into the history of initiatives to support Black owned businesses in the United States.  In this episode we feature conversations about the policy side of the story with Tim Bates, Professor emeritus at Wayne State University  and  Fred McKinney, recently retired Carlton Highsmith Chair for Innovation and Entrepreneur...

Episode 3 of the CitySCOPE podcast features  Professor   Gerald Jaynes, the A. Whitney Griswold Professor of Economics, African American Studies, and Urban Studies with lead in commentary from Tim Bates, Professor emeritus at Wayne State University  and  Fred McKinney,  former Carlton Highsmith Chair for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Quinnipiac University and the past Director of the People's...