Townbuilders

In this episode, Levi sits down with Mike Hathorne, urban strategist and author of The Great Housing Reversal. Mike's new book argues that America's housing crisis isn't a shortage problem; it's a misalignment problem: we're still building for a 1970s household in a 2020s world. They discuss what the demographic data is actually showing, why the systems keep us locked into building the wrong product, and why the market is screaming for walkable, community-oriented developments.

In this episode, Levi sits down with Scott Snodgrass — farmer, entrepreneur, and founder of Agmenity. to talk about what it really means to build an agrihood. Scott came to real estate by way of the farm. After getting drawn is to do consulting for a neighborhood regenerative farm, Scott started a business of consulting for developers looking to create agricultural amenities before eventually starting Meristem Communities and doing a development himself. Today, Indigo, is a 235-acre walkable, mixed-use community on the outskirts of Houston built around a working farm at its center. Scott is one of the leading voices in the nation when it comes to developing agrihoods and is a wealth of knowledge on the subject.

In this episode, Levi sits down with Jan Sramek, CEO and founder of California Forever — one of the most ambitious development projects in the United States today. The plan is to build a new walkable city for more than 400,000 residents in Solano County, northeast of San Francisco, anchored by a world-class manufacturing park and the largest shipyard in America. In this conversation, Levi and Jan discuss how he raised a billion dollars and quietly assembled 70,000 acres, how the traditional urbanism of American cities like Charleston and Savannah have inspired the design, and what phase one of building a city from scratch actually looks like.

In this episode, Levi sits down with Devon Zuegel, a former software engineer and the visionary behind Esmeralda, a proposed 260-acre village in California’s wine country. Inspired by childhood memories and a personal obsession, Devon has set out to create a place that solves the issues she saw in the built environment and that could be a blend of vibrant urbanism and intentional community. She shares how she’s navigating California’s complex regulatory environment, the idea of pop-up villages to create community, raising long-term capital, and how to build trust with locals.

In this episode, Levi sits down with developer and NTBA veteran Joel Embry, the visionary behind Amelia Park, one of the earliest and most fully realized traditional neighborhood developments (TNDs) in the Southeast. Joel shares the origin story of Amelia Park—from his early exposure to Seaside and meeting Andrés Duany, to navigating the banking world and architectural challenges of building something radically different. Their conversation dives deep into the importance of aging in place, community design as a tool for public health, and the social science behind walkable neighborhoods. Joel also introduces his latest venture, Civic Telehealth, which aims to bridge the gap between healthcare and home life in aging communities. This is an inspiring, wide-ranging discussion on legacy, purpose, and how design can shape human flourishing—especially in our later years.