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Since the beginning of the year, the focus in real estate news has been money: development capital, redevelopment funding, consumer financing, etc. But once the money side of the equation loosens up, will the projects that have been stalled for months (if not years) still be what consumers want to buy?

To take a look at the consumer side of the equation, The Real Story is revisiting a series of interviews with J. Walker Smith, Executive Vice Chairman of The Futures Company, one of the nation’s leading experts on consumer behavior.

In today’s conversation, Walker observes that our younger generation is prolonging its adolescence and putting off making a number of life choices—like getting married, buying a home, starting a family. He mentions a Stanford study that compares the top five life steps that 1960’s Americans expected to have achieved by the time the were 30—and found that Gen Y isn’t placing the same emphasis on material things and social mores.

Does that mean that the American Dream has become irrelevant? Hardly, says Walker, because owning a small piece of land and a home—a mark of success for the country’s founders—still resonates with modern-day Americans. The dream, if not deferred, is going to be translated differently in this diverse, technologically advanced, sustainability-conscious post-millennium society.

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When The Real Story spoke to Harry Mavrogenes, Executive Director of the San Jose Redevelopment Agency, about the potential for moving the Oakland A’s to San Jose, he was excited by the prospect. Pending a decision from Major League Baseball about the Giants territorial rights over San Jose—a decision that has yet to be made, the Mercury News reported this week—San Jose is ready with a plan that includes land next door to a transit station, downtown, with 20,000 parking spaces available. He sees the return of the urban ballpark as a phenomenon that is working throughout the country—in San Francisco, San Diego, Baltimore and Denver to name a few cities that now host baseball close to the urban core—and he can tell us about the huge economic benefit of having a major league team in San Jose. Not only would the building of the park itself provide much-needed construction jobs, but the ongoing sustainable jobs in and around the ballpark would change the employment statistics for San Jose.

But the Redevelopment Agency is no one-trick pony: while awaiting the decision of MLB, it is also working toward the creation of a permanent daily market area, like Pike’s Place in Seattle, to draw people downtown in search of locally grown food, local retail and goods that would be unique to the San Jose area. Also on its radar is California’s plan for high-speed rail, and how it could best impact the area, and a look at more in-town residential, to keep commutes short and the downtown increasingly diverse and lively.

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The twist has developed in Jerry Brown’s plot to eliminate redevelopment agencies (RDAs). The San Francisco Chronicle reported late yesterday that nine mayors of California’s largest cities have formed a working group to come up with an alternative to the governor’s plan. They met with the governor yesterday.

“When the federal government faces a deficit, it prints money,” said Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa as reported on SF Gate. “When the state faces a deficit, it balances its budget on the backs of local government. This is absolutely the wrong time to move away from these agencies and their job creation and revenue generation.”

Included in the group of nine mayors was San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed of San Jose. The Real Story gained special insight into his city’s RDA last spring when we interviewed its Executive Director Harry Mavrogenes, featured in today’s podcast.

One of the initiatives that the San Jose Redevelopment Agency has taken on in recent years is called Strong Neighborhoods. The idea behind it was the recognition that as the City grew out toward its suburbs, the neighborhoods in the urban core got shabbier and felt forgotten. The Strong Neighborhoods program has done what its name suggests—through investment of almost $100 million dollars over the last decade, it had brought neighborhoods together as independent groups, each working with the City for the betterment of their own small area—by the opening of a park, the building of a community center, more road and lighting improvements, etc.

Be sure to listen as Harry explains that the state of California is now regularly dipping into local budgets to handle some of its budget woes—and the California Redevelopment Agency sued the state over its $2 billion grab of redevelopment funds. A harbinger of things to come?

An especially memorable and unique neighborhood of San Francisco is Chinatown, which dates back to before the Gold Rush. The largest Chinese community outside Asia, Chinatown is especially festive for the next several weeks during the Lunar New Year Celebrations, which take place over a two-week time span. Hundreds of thousands of visitors will flock to the area for a series of colorful events.  Here are some highlights:

Coming right up this weekend (January 29 and 30) is the Chinese New Year Flower Fair, where families come to purchase their traditional holiday flora and fruits. The fair will be accompanied by traditional dance, music and art. It takes place on Grant Avenue between Clay and Broadway and Pacific Avenue between Kearny and Stockton.

Next Thursday, February 3, is the Chinese New Year’s Day, which marks the beginning 4709—the Year of the Rabbit. This is a year of peace and calm, much appreciated after the ferocious year of the Tiger. Emphasis is on good taste, refinement, congeniality, diplomacy and relaxation. It’s a day of family gatherings and giving of red envelopes of money.

On Saturday, February 19, the Chinese New Year Parade takes place in San Francisco. Floats, acrobats, marching band and the 250-foot long Gum Lung—the Golden Dragon–cap off the Spring Festival celebrations. Stake out a spot on Kearny or Market—the parade starts at 5:30 rain or shine!

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As the debate over the existence of redevelopment agencies continues, The Real Story looks back over evidence of successful urban renewal projects. San Jose is a great example of a California city getting it right: its downtown boasts walkable streets, connecting interesting and attractive venues. There is a palpable heartbeat to the city, day and night, and a sense of civic pride based, in no small part, to the fact that the city just keeps getting better.

Harry Mavrogenes, Executive Director of the San Jose Redevelopment Agency, spoke with The Real Story last May about the importance of integrating high quality projects with high design aesthetic into the urban fabric. He says with pride that the Arena looks as good today—twenty years after its opening—as it did when it was envisioned. The next frontier for architecture and design for San Jose? Green building.

It makes sense, says Harry, that the tenants of the Silicon Valley, who are so used to creating cutting edge products, would want to be in buildings that are also cutting edge, in their green design and materials use. Keep an eye out for new buildings—commercial and residential—that will reshape our thinking about all things green, as San Jose keeps staying ahead of the curve.

Photo courtesy of the City of San Jose.

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With almost daily headlines about the possibility of eliminating redevelopment agencies, the debate is heating up. It was announced yesterday that State Controller John Chiang will examine 18 of the state’s more than 400 redevelopment agencies to review how well they are fighting urban blight. Spending and compensation practices will be scrutinized.

Governor Brown believes eliminating redevelopment agencies will help solve California’s budget crisis. Proponents of RDA’s say they create jobs, revitalize local retail and attract business.

To help shed light on the topic, we are taking another listen to our interview with Harry Mavrogenes, which originally aired last May.

Downtown San Jose today is a mix of historic buildings and modern architecture; materials one will never see again, and those that are truly state-of-the-art. Harry Mavrogenes, Executive Director of the San Jose Redevelopment Agency, talks about how San Jose’s new urbanist future has deep roots in the community’s past.

The old brick buildings—compact, low-rise and with a look and feel that is very different than those in San Francisco and Oakland—were seismically unstable. Many cities have torn those kinds of structures down, and started anew. Instead, San Jose looked at them as defining elements of the downtown, and retrofitted them for new uses.

Harry talks about his pride in the repurposing of the Civic Auditorium, built during the WPA period, and home in the 1960’s and 70’s to many a rising rock band. Today it is a critical part of the downtown’s entertainment venues. The reinvention of the old California Theater as an opera house and symphony hall has proved to be a magnet for the community, and a source of community pride.