Realtopia - Real Estate for Teens

What turns a space into a place — and can belonging actually be designed? Naomi sits down with Ethan Kent, Executive Director and co-founder of PlacemakingX, a global network of more than 1,500 placemakers in over 85 countries. Before that, Ethan spent more than 20 years at Project for Public Spaces and has worked in and studied places across more than 1,000 cities around the world. From the cheap beach chairs that helped transform Times Square to markets, main streets, and neighborhood gathering places, Ethan explains why great places are built around purpose, meaning, and people — not just architecture. They discuss why sociability may be the most important measure of a public space, why cities should aim to be lovable rather than simply livable, and why successful placemaking starts with life first, then space, then buildings. In this episode:What turns a space into a placeHow beach chairs helped transform Times SquareWhy sociability matters more than beautiful designThe Power of 10 and why people need reasons to stayWhy “lovable” may matter more than “livable”Place-led development vs. “place taking”Why physical design can create the potential for belonging, but not belonging itselfWhy teenagers have been designed out of many citiesA conversation about how people shape places — and how places, in turn, shape community. Realtopia is hosted by Naomi Cohen.

Can the places we live actually make us trust each other more?Naomi sits down with Charles Montgomery — journalist, author of Happy City, founder of Happy Cities, and author of the new book The Trust Experiments: Rebuilding Connection in a World Designed to Divide Us.More than a decade after Happy City, Charles explores how cities shape not just our happiness, but our relationships with one another — and why housing, public spaces, screens, transportation, and even the people we encounter every day can influence whether we feel connected or alone.In this episode:• How cities shape happiness and belonging• Why affordability affects connection• Density, housing and the right social scale• How screens and cities can deepen isolation• Why public spaces can build social trust• How young people can help reshape their citiesA conversation about a simple but powerful idea: the places we build shape the relationships we build.

What if the reason your neighborhood looks the way it does — who lives there, what gets built, and how expensive it feels — isn't random? In this episode of Realtopia, Naomi sits down with Nolan Gray — city planner, Research Director at California YIMBY, and author of Arbitrary Lines — to unpack the invisible rules shaping our cities. Together, they explore one of the biggest questions facing this generation: if we build more housing, do people actually feel more connected to where they live? In this episode:What zoning really controlsThe ideas behind the YIMBY movementHousing, affordability, and displacementWhether abundance creates belongingRethinking suburbs and neighborhood identityWhat makes a place feel like home

Why does one city feel instantly recognizable while another could be almost anywhere? In this episode of Realtopia, Naomi sits down with Professor Greg Clark — advisor to more than 400 cities across six continents, author, and co-host of The DNA of Cities — to explore what gives places their identity and why the most successful cities of the future may not be the ones that grow fastest, but the ones that become more fully themselves. Together, they unpack the idea of a city’s DNA — the combination of inherited geography, historical choices, culture, institutions, and new adaptations that shape how places evolve. The conversation moves from global competition to local belonging, asking a bigger question: How do we build cities people can actually imagine staying in? In this episode:The DNA of a city: endowed, inherited, and acquired traitsWhy global sameness is the great risk to citiesTurin and the cities that defy their reputationBuilding a belonging index: social capital and the social contractAffordability vs. global competitiveness and the case for 50% affordable housingClimate, AI, and the just transition

Why do some spaces instantly feel right — while others never quite do? In this episode of Realtopia, Naomi sits down with Dr. Toby Israel — environmental psychologist, founder of Design Psychology, and author of Some Place Like Home and Designing Women's Lives — to explore how our earliest experiences of place quietly shape the homes we choose, the spaces we create, and even what makes us feel like we belong. Together, they unpack the idea of an environmental autobiography: the hidden story of childhood places, family environments, and memories that can still influence our design choices decades later. Instead of asking what makes a place beautiful, this conversation asks a different question: what makes a place feel like yours? In this episode:What Design Psychology is — and why psychology can become the primary design toolEnvironmental autobiography and the idea of an environmental family treeWhy people often recreate — or reject — the homes they grew up inHow unconscious place memories shape layouts, colors, and objectsWhether Pinterest, algorithms, and AI are disconnecting us from real preferencesHow renters can still personalize temporary spacesWhat traditional “belonging” metrics may miss about emotional experience of placeWhy two people can experience the exact same place completely differently