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  Introduction: Welcome to policy chats. The official podcast of the School of Public Policy at the University of California, Riverside. I'm your host, Kevin Karami. Joining me in my classmates as we learn about potential policy solutions for today's biggest societal challenges. Joining us today is the host of the urban planning is not boring podcast. Natalie Ikhrata, my fellow classmate, Catherine Mah, and I chatted with her about urban planning and housing policy. 

  Kevin Karami: Thank you, Natalie so much for taking the time to join us on an episode of policy chats. It's amazing to have a fellow podcaster on the podcast. We've never had this and it's gonna be an amazing conversation about a really interesting and pressing topic. I want to get straight into things. Before we jump into the, get into the weeds of urban planning and housing. I thought it might be a good idea for us to begin with an overview of what urban planning is. It's determined phrase that's thrown around often. But I think for our audience, it'd be really great if we can start off by describing the basics of urban planning and also why it's so significant. Why are we talking about this today? 

  Natalie Ikhrata: Yeah. Yeah, of course. Thank you so much for having me, by the way, Kevin and Catherine, It's so great to be here. Just to jump right. In. Urban planning by definition refers to just the design and regulation of the way we use space. And this kind of, there's a focus on the physical form. You have economic functions, you have social impacts of this urban environment, of the built environment as well. And there's also location-based things to focus on and the activities that are involved within those spaces. So the way that I really like to explain urban planning to people that don't really know much about what urban planning is, which is quite often that I found when I'm telling people, hey, I'm an urban planner, they're like, Wow, what, what is that? And I actually think it's so important that more people do know what urban planning is because it impacts every aspect of your day. Basically, every single moment of your day is planned for you. And it's kinda funny to think about, but it really is so true. So it's from the moment you wake up, you're either in a single-family home that's been built for you and it was purchased or you're waking up in a multi-family residential apartment complex that you're either renting or you might possibly own. You might be in the suburbs, you might be in a very metropolitan area. You might be in a small city, you know, kinda varies. And when you get into your car and you drive to work, you're using a road that was designed to go in very specific directions. There's very specific routes. Or if you take the bus, you know, that bus comes at very specific times, it makes very specific stops. And so essentially everything around you has been designed and planned on your behalf by an urban planner. And the reason why I tell people that urban planning is so important is that if you do not pay attention to these things, you allow someone else to essentially make decisions that impact every aspect of your day. These are very significant decisions that I think more people need to pay attention to. So I always encourage people to really start addressing these topics just because of how important they are. And as you begin to ask more questions throughout this podcast, I'll be able to explain why we do need to have everybody start focusing on these aspects surrounding urban planning and what it is. 

  Kevin Karami: Definitely, That's great to hear. And I think  you did a great job of introducing the topic. And like you said, it's something that I think a lot of people have heard thrown around in conversation or maybe they've heard it in a video or something like that. But not many people know. I did want to ask, do you think that education is one of the most important parts? When it comes to people understanding not only what urban planning is, but more importantly like why it's so important to, like you mentioned, how it affects us in our everyday lives. Do you think that's something that, you know, people being educated on this? Is that something that we need to focus on more? 

  Natalie Ikhrata: So I definitely think that education plays a huge part in ensuring that people really do understand the subtle nuances of urban planning. I don't think it's required. However, I do think that spaces like podcasts, provide an opportunity for people who maybe do not want to go and get an education and urban planning, or who do not want to go and get an education and public policy, podcasts can create this environment and space where we can really break down these topics in a very understandable way for people who maybe aren't as educated as an industry professional or somebody that has gone to graduate school or things of that nature. And so, yes, education is extremely important, but I think that we can really teach people a lot about urban planning, because urban planning involves a lot of lived experience. You own a car, you ride the bus, you live in a home. You are a handy, capable person who has to use sidewalks and maybe that's difficult. You have these lived experiences that you really do begin to understand urban planning just in a very general way. And then you can start listening to podcasts, watching videos, reading books on these topics, and you begin to learn a lot more about them. So yes, education, of course, I will always encourage people if you're interested in this significantly and you want to really make big strides and impacts in this space. Yeah, go and get your education and really, you know, focus in on these things. I think it's amazing, but I definitely don't think it's something that you have to do in order to understand how serious and important these topics are that we discuss? 

  Catherine Mah: Yes, absolutely. And just thank you for speaking upon how you personally would describe urban planning and these specific examples and our lived experiences. So now I wanted to ask what are the most pressing challenges regarding community development? 

  Natalie Ikhrata: Yeah. So with community development, I'm going to focus in on housing development. There's all different kinds of development and there's a lot of different organizations and developers that either specialize in just housing development or maybe they do retail and commercial development or industrial development, it can vary. So I'm going to focus in on housing because I think especially living in the state of California, It's one of the most significant challenges that we're having with that's going on right now and the state. So I think one of the most pressing challenges right now is housing affordability. And one significant challenge with community development is the timeline in which it takes to build housing. And this is why we are facing a significant shortage of housing. And that shortage met with increasing demand has caused prices to just simply skyrocket. On top of that, we have this added layer of the fact that wages are simply not keeping up with these inflated prices. And so we're seeing significant challenges in trying to get housing on the ground as quickly as possible. So some challenges associated with this timeline to build housing are the fact that we can't seem to streamline development. It can be quite difficult when you're developing property or you're developing housing, you have to go through significant processes. You're pulling permits or you're paying fees, you have to do a lot of community outreach. You have to go through city councils depending on where you're building. You might have to go through other organizations in order to get this housing on the ground. And that takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of resources and it takes a lot of money. And then you're also met with this additional layer of community members that may not want housing in their city. And so we refer to this in our field as nimbyism. It stands for “Not in my backyard.” So these are individuals that do not want housing in their neighborhood. And they often may use some terms like, “we don't want it to change the character of our neighborhood” and things of that nature. I'm sure you've heard that before. And so essentially what ends up happening is you can have community members that stop and entire project or postpone a project from happening. And what that ends up doing is adding cost to the developer who then has to pay more and wait longer to develop this project. And it can actually end up killing the project entirely, or it can stall this project significantly. And that really causes a lot of issues. And so what we tried to do is shift this narrative of we don't want those kinds of people in our neighborhood. We really have to shift that dynamic and change the hearts and minds of folks that feel this way because the simple fact is we need housing in order to keep up with the growing population. And one way to do that is to not only focus on single-family development, but focused on density and building multifamily residential development. And we do have to try to find a way to bridge this gap where people don't want multifamily housing in their single-family neighborhoods, we have to find a way to work with people. And I think this is where it comes into a more public policy debate. Planning debate. You have to really understand that people's concerns may be valid. They're not always valid, but they may be. And we have to really make sure that we're working with the community and that we respect everyone's input because it's so important. And so I would say the last two challenges that we're facing with community development right now would be the environmental constraints. We have a law in the state of California known as Sequa, say California Environmental Quality Act. And it requires significant environmental impact reporting for projects that are being developed. That again, adds additional time, more money on a project. So we really need to find a way to streamline that process. Because it could be that not every single housing project needs to have an environmental impact report. And also some people can sometimes not always, it's not significant, but sometimes can use Sequa to stall projects if they don't want a project in their area. So I've known of developers who have seen another apartment complex coming up right next to their building, and it's going to block their view. And so they'll go and they'll file a lawsuit and they'll stop a project because that developer just doesn't want their views being blocked by another project. So Sequa can also be used maliciously and so we want to avoid that. Then the final challenge would be equity concerns. We don't want to harm already marginalized groups when we develop housing. We don't want to gentrify neighborhoods. We do not want to add two already very significant constraints on cities and on neighborhoods. And so we have to be very mindful of these challenges. And so that's what I would say in terms of the most pressing challenges I would probably conclude with those. 

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  Kevin Karami: Thank you so much for her outlining that. Talking about how important urban planning and its significance and it affects us in our day-to-day lives. But then there's so many different problems like you mentioned, that an urban planner like you faces when it comes to actually building enough housing for a growing population. Like you said, the issue that I find the most interesting to talk about is the one about where people in a certain community may not want new projects and they may not want new housing for a variety of reasons, like you mentioned. Can you maybe elaborate how you address an issue like that? Because that's clearly very, that's very different from how you would go about addressing an environmental concern. Those are totally from my understanding, they seem to be totally different in terms of how you go about it. So how do you, because it almost sounds like the way you would go about it as you would try and change someone's mind. And that's really difficult to do, to try and convince someone that, hey, it's really important because there are people who need this. And an extent of that would be convincing people that we also need multi family units, not just single families. And so how do you actually bridge that gap?

  Natalie Ikhrata: Yeah, that's a great question. And one that I think many people in the field are still really trying to figure out, myself included because it is really hard because at the end of the day, we're such a diverse state and country that you would be very wrong to assume that everybody is going to come to consensus and that everybody is going to come to an agreement. At some time. At some point in time, we're going to have to acknowledge that there's going to be give and take and that there's going to need to be compromise. I think the challenges that we face currently are that when you have someone who may be considered an NB, when they go to that city council meeting and they say, Hey, I don't want this project in my neighborhood. People often just brush it off. They don't really address it, they ignore it. And we can't do that because we really do need to acknowledge that public participation and public partnership is extremely important. And when people don't feel valid or validated, they are going to only make things worse. And I think that we don't need to enable them to have these beliefs, but I do think it does become a campaign of changing hearts and minds. And I think we do that with the more public outreach and partnerships that we do. I think one significant challenge that we face, especially in real estate development, is that I don't think there's enough sincere and significant public outreach. I think often it's very superficial. It's very check the box. It's, hey, we have a requirement to hold a public outreach meeting, so we're going to do it and they hold this meeting and they say, Okay, well, we did the meeting, the one meeting we had, and now we've fulfilled our obligation and we're done. And when you do that, you do not allow the community to feel that their input, their feelings were really validated or important to the developer or the individual. I think that's a problem because the community and the individuals within their own communities, they are the experts and we need to acknowledge that as planners. And so when we do public outreach, it needs to be public outreach with the intention of public partnership that's ongoing. And I think when you do that, you will find that you're also more able to make these partnerships form these relationships. And then when you start hearing things like, Oh, I don't want that project in my neighborhood because it's going to change the character of the neighborhood. You can say, Hey, actually, this is what the projects can really do. And that's where you really do begin to stop being on this very superficial level and you start to get very much into it with these folks. You start really to form those relationships. And it's better because you are more able to start talking to them and being more real with them and educating them and really talking to them and starting to change their perceptions. Because often their perceptions come from a place of pure ignorance and not, I'm not saying that in a mean way. I'm saying not purely in the fact that they're going based on their own lived experience. They may have seen an apartment complex come up and maybe they got into an argument with one of the neighbors or maybe they saw something that they didn't like at that apartment complex. And so now their mind is made up that Okay, no apartments are horrible when you can change that perception. That's where you really start making significant moves and change. And it's just extremely important and I don't want to ramble on, but I think it really is just stopping this superficial, holding one public meeting and then calling it quits. We really do need to start forming relationships because I think that's how we're going to bridge that gap. 

  Kevin Karami: Something you said that I think I definitely felt was the idea of building relationships. And that's, that's been a common every conversation that I've had or previous episodes we've had on housing. It seems like that's one of the common themes that relationship building with community members and those who may not know or like you said, maybe had a bad experience,  or a lived experience in the past. And don't fully grasp the scale of the issue because it really is one of the most pressing problems. Really in the country and definitely in California. I did want to ask about another issue or another subtopic, I guess you can call it. From an urban planner's perspective. What role does transportation play when it comes to building housing? Certain California or Los Angeles specifically, for example, is notorious for not having the best transportation system. As an urban planner when you're actually thinking about projects, when you're thinking about the layout of a city or an area, what role does transportation play in your mind? 

  Natalie Ikhrata: It's significant to any project. I'll say it that way. Um, I'm sure you might have heard there are many programs that are really trying to prioritize building housing near transit. But currently, we live in a state and in a country that has over a long period of time prioritized One and Only mode, which is the car. And with that, we have planned for routes, roads, and options that are only meant for the vehicle, the single occupancy vehicle. We have dedicated little time, money, energy to public transit and that's shifting, that's changing in many ways. But still many and majority of the people in the state rely on their car to get around. When we discuss housing, especially in more metropolitan areas, we do want to focus on transit-oriented development or transit-oriented communities. And funny enough, actually, I worked for an agency and I'm in the Department of transit-oriented development. So this is essentially putting housing within a half-mile to a mile radius of transit, whether it be rail, whether it'd be bus stop, things of that nature. The challenge that we face in the state is that we have sprawling communities. And so what has happened is we're constantly pushing housing further and further away from the urban core where a majority of our jobs are. And as that begins to go further and further out, you really have limited options and how you're going to get around. The limited option always ends up resulting in the car. So how do we change that is a really significant urban planning problem that we're addressing currently. Because in a place like Riverside, you guys don't have rail or bus rapid transit options of that nature. And so that does start posing challenges because we can put housing and Riverside and that's fine if people need the housing. So we want to add that supply, but we have to be mindful. Okay, where are these people getting their jobs? Are they working in LA and are they commuting? Are they working in Orange County or are they commuting? Most likely they're using their car. We have very limited use of public transit. And that's something that we're trying to shift. But we cannot shift that so long as we are not having people pay the full price to drive. And that's something that is being discussed very much so currently, especially with new legislation that is passed. Because right now, we have many people who use our roads and contribute to pollution by using their car and contribute to the wear and tear of the infrastructure by using their vehicle. But they pay almost no cost for doing so other than the gas tax. And when you're not pricing this mode, when you're not pricing the system properly, you will continue to see less and less people using transit. And when they do that, transit-oriented development becomes very difficult. And so I think that I want to say, I wish I had an answer to how can we really start pushing for more housing near transit? I think the thing is first, we need to focus on really making sure that we're even pricing our system correctly to increase the use of transit. I think that's an even more serious topic that needs to be discussed on this new legislation has come out in this state, but we'll get into a little bit later. 

  Catherine Mah: Yes. Absolutely. And thank you for touching upon how transportation and there needs to be that shift of housing near transit. So I wanted to ask, can you explain zoning and how it affects us today?

  Natalie Ikhrata: Yeah, of course. So zoning and I'll just give a very Oxford dictionary definition. So zoning as a system of laws that restricts how particular areas of land can be used and essentially what gets to be built on that land. And so this means that throughout different regions, within a city or a town, you're going to have different rules for what can be built and how it can be built, and then what cannot be built in a given area. Often this was done for safety reasons. You do not want to put a house next to an industrial plant because of pollutants, you don't want residents to become sick. However, as I will touch upon, There's planning practices that have been done that have significantly harmed many communities. So I'll touch upon that later. But essentially, in urban planning, you have a municipality or a government agency that divides the land into areas called zones. Those zones are given designations, so we currently have residential, commercial, and industrial. There are other zones. They include agricultural as well. But for the most part, when you hear about zoning, you're going to hear about residential, commercial, and industrial typically. And so depending on what zone your in, there's gonna be different regulations. So that includes how far a building can be setback, meaning how big a front yard can be or how big the frontage of the space can be. There's gonna be height restrictions, there's gonna be density restrictions. And these impact us today. They are very significant because although it has been intended to keep us safe, you do have situations in which it can be quite restrictive. And so I'll just give one example. As we've been moving towards shopping online and e-commerce, we have had less desire as individuals to go to shopping malls. And so all around the country, we're actually seeing that there are a lot of underutilized shopping malls. But because they have zoning designations as commercial, you can't put housing on these parcels. And so essentially you have shopping malls that can either sit vacant and basically just wear and tear over the years and they're very underutilized. They should not be there anymore. There's no significant need for them. And they can be taken over by a more practical use like housing, but they can't because there's a zoning restriction. There is legislation that's coming forward. I cannot remember if it's been passed yet or not. But it would be essentially to change certain zoning regulations where you can put housing and commercial zones and you can essentially reason. And I think that's significant. However, we have to be really careful because with policy, we need to ensure that the policy isn't too broad and then allows for housing to go in areas that it really should not be in, like an industrial plant or a commercial area that maybe has significant challenges. By putting housing there, you'd be creating significant challenges for our community, so we have to be very conscious of that. But I think that zoning is so significant because of how restrictive it can be, and also the opportunities that it provides. 

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  Catherine Mah: Yes, absolutely. Then I know you started to touch upon it. So can you describe redlining and its persisting prevalence? 

  Natalie Ikhrata: Yes, of course. So historical redlining. By definition, was withholding loan funds or insurance from neighborhoods considered poor economic risk. And so essentially, real estate development firms created maps in which they essentially zoned areas. On these maps, banks would refer to them and they would say, Okay, well, based on these categorizations, we're going to either consider someone for a loan or not, depending on where they live in these zones. So in the wake of the Great Depression, the president created the New Deal. That was included in the New Deal was the National Housing Act of 1934. And this provided things like a 30-year amortized mortgage loan. There were also lower interest rates, and so this allowed even more opportunity for people to enter home ownership and enter that space with homeownership. This provided low-income folks as well with the opportunity to now own a home. However, there was one significant restriction, which was that people of color who are low-income were restricted due to red lining. And so essentially, the Home Owners Loan Corp created these security maps. And the maps were broken up into four designations or for color zones. The zones were green, meaning that this was the best area, the best people lived here. You had blue, that meant that these were white color families. You add yellow, which meant it was a more declining area. And then you have read, which meant it was hazardous. But more specifically in red zones, one of the criteria for designating a red zone was the presence of foreign born, low class whites, or in the terms of the HLC at the time, the presence of Negroes. And this is one of the most consistent criteria under redlining. And having the presence of people of color in an area would quickly turn that area into a redlined zone. And what happened was the bank would see that. And so if you are a person of color and you went to the bank and you said, I want to buy a home and they saw that you were living in a redlined area or you were a lower class white person and you were a low-income white person going to a bank and you are asking for a loan. If you were in a redlined area, you would be denied essentially because the bank didn't want to take the risk because your property value is so low due to the fact that you were considered to be in an area that was so hazardous or it was in disrepair. All kinds of different aspects were associated with what it meant to be in a redlined area. And this led to a decrease in services that were offered like buses or any investment into schools, then your property values dropped as I mentioned before. And this continued for 30 years. This continued significantly during white flight when white families were now moving to the suburbs and out of the inner city. And this essentially created segregation because what you had was white flight, which caused many white folks to leave the central city and move out into the suburbs. They then created covenants which restricted black people or any person of color, foreign-born person from owning a home in the suburbs. So now you have segregation because now many people of color were concentrated in the central city. And you have then white people who were all out into the suburbs. And they had all of this investment in the suburbs. They had the best schools. And we can still obviously see this today. You do find that often in many suburban communities they have some of the best school districts. And even if you hear, when folks say, Oh, I'm really considering moving into this neighborhood because it's got such a good school district, you really have to think about what that actually means and where that comes from. And it does come from a long history of the way that we've planned for things and the way that we zoned areas at one given point in time and how it still affects us today is quite significant. And often people want to say, well, oh, red lining, it's completely illegal now and it can't be done. That doesn't matter because the permanency of the infrastructure of housing is still significant. You can go on Zillow right now and find a home that's from the 1930s and 40s. And that home is still standing, or you can see one that may was maybe redeveloped, but it's still there and it's still in a predominantly black neighborhood, it's still in a predominantly white neighborhood. So we do need to be very conscious because housing infrastructure is quite permanent. And so often we can see that neighborhood makeup has stayed pretty much the same. So the way that housing segregation has and continues to affect us today, even through past planning practices. There's one aspect which is wealth. Housing is one of the biggest ways to accumulate wealth, to create generational wealth that you pass onto your family. So at the time that the Housing Act was passed and these loans were being given out, 98% of those loans were from white borrowers for the first 30 years. So you can imagine what a significant head start these folks had. You have 30 years to own, rewon, sell, go buy another property, and pass that onto your family for 30 years. Whereas 2% of folks only were either a person of color or a foreign-born person who had the opportunity to own a home and then pass it down to their family. So we see many wealth disparities currently in the state that we're living in the country as well. So that's one significant impact. The second is education. I've already talked about that a bit, but one way to look at it as well is that the primary funding source for schools is property tax. Your property taxes go to funding your local school. And high home value means you're paying more property tax. When you pay more property tax, that means more money going to the schools when you live in a neighborhood or an area that has lower property value, you're paying less money. And so the schools aren't getting as many resources or money as the comparison. So this is also something where low quality schools have a lack of funding. They are now essentially falling into a cycle where your property value is going to impact whether or not your child is going to get the best education or go to the best school. And that's a really significant problem that we need to address. And I would say the third one that I really want to touch upon is health. So due to past planning practices like redlining that we've talked about, you have people of color who are more likely to live near industrial plants, and that's something that I touched upon. So zoning wasn't always around. And when it wasn't, they were putting housing near industrial plants. And often this housing was meant for lower-income folks and people of color. And till this day, you often can see a concentration where more people of color do tend to live near industrial plants. They suffer from the significant health impacts of living near an industrial plant because of the pollutants that are coming out of this warehouse. They also tend to live farther away from fresh food, grocery stores, or they're in places where water is not drinkable. And so you hear of situations like Flint, Michigan. But there are other areas all around the United States in which there are people who are not living near areas where water is drinkable to them. And then on top of that, there is a crumbling infrastructure in these neighborhoods due to the lack of investment. And so you have buildings that are so outdated. And people are still living in them. And due to that lack of investment, they are still living in certain apartments that have toxic lead in the paint, that's still on the walls and they're inhaling that. And so this has led to many studies that have shown that people of color have higher incidences of certain related issues such as cancer, asthma, and heart disease. There's many studies that have gone to this and that's the contribution due to the fact that we've had pasted planning practices. But a permanency of infrastructure that has allowed people to still stay in the same residences that maybe haven't been updated or renovated or redeveloped and it's causing significant issues. 

  Kevin Karami:I love the way you put it that past practices, something that happened 50, 60, 70, 80 years ago so deeply affects us today. And the prevalence or the fact that housing is generational in nature. People might've bought a house decades ago. They are benefiting from that now and then, but then those who did not have those same opportunities back then are still feeling the negative consequences of those policies and those practices from 50, 60 years ago

  Natalie Ikhrata: Absolutely.

  Kevin Karami: And that really just goes to show how deeply embedded the issue is. And I know housing is one of those topics that, especially in California, is talked about so often. It's one of those main topics we always talk about. We need more housing. What are we gonna do with housing? But then when you take a step back and actually look at the fact that it's so deeply embedded in the state and also the nation's history and the practices and the policies that were passed and the practices that were done in the past and how they affect us today. I think that really makes you take a step back, step back and think that this is a much bigger issue. 

  Natalie Ikhrata: Absolutely.

  Kevin Karami: And we think about one policy or one, one change isn't going to address isn't going to address all of these concerns that you outlined. And it's great to hear that. I know we talked a lot about the negativities of all the issues that are there, but I'm glad that you also mentioned that this is something that we have to work together on. And I keep going back to that point on relationship building and that building relationships with community members and making sure that people really understand the consequences of these actions from the past and the fact that they affect us today. Natalie, as we approach the end of the episode, I did want to give you a chance. I know I mentioned this at the beginning that you are a fellow podcaster. You're the host of “Urban Planning is not Boring.” Can you maybe briefly describe the kinds of issues and topics that you talk about on your podcast. 

  Natalie Ikhrata: Yeah, of course. So Samantha Elman, my co-host, and I, we both go to USC together and we're in the grad program for urban planning. We wanted to create a space in which we could really unpack a lot of topics related to urban planning that are extremely significant and important. And so we touch upon things. We have an entire episode that goes on the history of zoning and red lining. We talk about legislation that's coming out. So we do have an episode that's coming out that's going to touch upon all of the really important legislation that's hit and gone through the California Legislator. And we also touch upon just various topics from both historical to present day. We meet with so many amazing and wonderful people. We kind of get their own background, their perspectives on what planning is to them, how they got into the field, what kind of jobs they're doing. Because I think with planning, the one unique, significant thing is that you can really do a lot. You can become a developer. You can work for a city planning office, you can work for the State Department. You can become your own consultant and maybe lead a design team and design buildings. There's just so many different opportunities in the field of urban planning. So we like to meet with various people in the industry and kind of learn what they're doing, what their perspective is on certain topics. And so that's something that we really touch upon, but we just really want people to understand that yes, sometimes urban planning can get very jargony and maybe there are some technical terms that people are like, Okay, this is a bit like dull, but it's so important for people to know about these things and to learn about these things because it really, it encompasses every aspect of your entire day. And I think that it's just really important for more people to learn about these things. Because it's important, it's going to really shape the rest of our future. And I think that when we take it back to public policy, I was previously Public Policy major at UC Riverside. When we consider what policies are coming down the line. Yes, maybe we can say, okay, this policy is really great. But urban planning and public policy are quite intersectional. And so we also need to consider, hey, that policy is going to impact the built environment, the urban environment in very significant ways. And so we actually need to take a step back and evaluate. And C, is that really the right policy? And when you can do that, and you can start those conversations, you get people to say, Hey, maybe I do need to start really looking into this a bit more because it's going to inform you better as a voter, who's gonna go to the polls in order to make the best decision for you in the moment. And so I think that's something that Sam and I really do talk about and that we really just push for on the podcasts. And I really love doing it with her. It's been just so amazing and it's opened so many opportunities, especially getting to talk to you guys. It's been wonderful..

  Kevin Karami: Fantastic. Thank you so much, Natalie. And for those interested, for those interested in Nathalie's podcast, you can find information about it in our show notes below. Well, that being said, Natalie, we're approaching the end of the episode. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us and talk about urban planning. And we've done housing policy, but we've never actually had an episode dedicated to urban planning specifically. So it was really interesting to learn about it. 

  Natalie Ikhrata:Amazing. Thank you guys so much. 

  Conclusion: This podcast is a production of the UC Riverside School of Public Policy. Our theme music was produced by C code. I'm Kevin for me. Until next time.