Place Based Community Regeneration

School of Architecture

Available on-demand

Join us as panelists discuss strategies for allocating limited funds (to be catalytic), attracting (the right kinds of) investment, and addressing housing shortages (by addressing failed urbanism) in the process of reactivating downtown development in Midwestern cities. Watch regional leaders discard obsolete models to champion fiscal solvency and civic pride, proving that when we prioritize community over projects, we rebuild the American fabric.

Introduction: Stefanos Polyzoides, Professor and Dean, University of Notre Dame School of Architecture
Speaker: Dave Weaver, Founder, weIMPACT Group
Panelists:
Jim Brainard, Former Mayor Carmel, Indiana
Rebekah Kik ’07 M.ADU, Assistant City Manager of Kalamazoo, Michigan
Stefanos Polyzoides
Dave Weaver

Moderated by Marianne Cusato ’97, ’17 MBA, Professor of the Practice and Director of the Housing & Community Regeneration Initiative

The third annual summit of the Housing and Community Regeneration Initiative marks a pivotal moment in the movement to revitalize the American Midwest. Growing from a modest gathering of 25 participants to an audience of over 100 professionals and civic leaders, the summit reflects a surging regional movement toward urban reform. This expansion signals a departure from passive observation toward a collaborative, action-oriented framework designed to reverse the “dysfunctional state of operations” that has historically plagued the Rust Belt.

The Crisis of the Status Quo

Stefanos Polyzoides, Dean of the Notre Dame School of Architecture, opened the summit by identifying a fundamental failure in modern planning. He argued that the dominant models of the last 50 years are obsolete, characterized by “backward-looking” codes and a “corrupted” financial structure. This system is largely driven by extractive Wall Street capital, which prioritizes “house-making”—the production of single-use, disposable structures—over “neighborhood building.” The result is a landscape of fragmented territories and car-centric zoning that erodes municipal solvency and leaves citizens voiceless.

The Elkhart Model: Neighborhoods Over Projects

Dave Weaver, founder of “We Impact,” presented a case study of Elkhart’s River District that challenged conventional economic development. Weaver detailed the strategic friction between “big dumb boxes” (industrial warehouses) and complex urban residential units. While industrial projects offered immediate 20–30% returns, Weaver’s team opted for the harder path: place-based residential development yielding only 3% returns initially.

This choice represents a commitment to permanent, local wealth over extractive, temporary capital. To illustrate the transformation, Weaver noted that the district’s “last holdout” was a building previously used for a basement cocaine distribution operation. By replacing such decay with high-design standards, Elkhart has successfully unlocked a hidden market, attracting $250 million in investment and proving that people will choose place over paycheck when a neighborhood is built with pride.

Fiscal Realities and Municipal Action

The panel, featuring former Carmel Mayor Jim Brainard and Kalamazoo Assistant City Manager Rebekah Kik, underscored the dire fiscal consequences of suburban sprawl. Brainard highlighted the staggering cost of infrastructure, noting that a simple two-lane road now costs between $12 million and $14 million per mile. He provided a sobering mathematical breakdown: a single grocery store requires roughly 7,000 families to survive. In a sprawled model, those families generate over 100,000 road miles per week—miles the city must police, pave, and maintain into perpetuity.

To bridge this fiscal gap, the panel emphasized the disparity in land value. A typical big-box retailer like Walmart assesses at roughly $500,000 per acre, whereas dense, mixed-use properties in Carmel and Elkhart can assess at $25 million per acre. This 50-fold increase in revenue per acre is the only way for a municipality to remain solvent. Kik emphasized that Kalamazoo secured $98 million in funding not by “job-chasing,” but by presenting a “design-led” vision that converted a broken zoning code into a viable work plan.

The following takeaways represent a paradigm shift in how mid-sized cities must approach economic development and municipal health.

Takeaway 1: Overcoming the Market Bias

Question: How can city leaders move forward when developers claim the “market” won’t support high-quality urban design?
Answer: Leaders must recognize that “the market” is often just a developer’s bias for what is easiest to build. The responsibility of the city is to consider the neighborhood. By holding projects to higher design standards and focusing on how a building activates the street, cities can unlock a market of residents who value quality of place over mere square footage.

Takeaway 2: The Superiority of Local Capital

Question: Why should a city prioritize local investment over large, national development firms?
Answer: National firms often follow an “extraction of wealth” model, building to the lowest possible standard to sell the asset at a high multiple. Local capital is “permanent” and “patient.” Local investors are willing to accept lower initial returns to ensure the long-term health and pride of their own community, creating value that stays within the city.

Takeaway 3: Maximizing Value Over Minimizing Incentives

Question: Should municipalities focus on minimizing the amount of tax incentives given to developers?
Answer: No. The focus should shift from minimizing incentives to maximizing project value. If a city identifies the specific urban form and quality it wants, it should deploy incentives strategically to fill the gap, ensuring the resulting development provides a century of tax increment rather than a short-term, low-value fix.

Takeaway 4: The Economic Necessity of the “Gift to the Street”

Question: Are public art and pedestrian-focused architecture luxuries that struggling cities cannot afford?
Answer: They are economic necessities. Buildings must provide a “gift to the street”—public art or engaging facades—to create the emotional connection that builds civic pride. This “quality of place” is the primary tool for talent recruitment and resident retention in the modern economy.

Takeaway 5: Urban Form as the Primary Tool for Solvency

Question: What is the most effective way for a city to ensure it can afford to maintain its infrastructure and emergency services?
Answer: Density and form. Because suburban sprawl costs more in maintenance ($12M+ per mile of road) than it generates in taxes, cities must use zoning to encourage dense, mixed-use forms. These forms generate up to 50 times the revenue per acre compared to low-density commercial “boxes,” providing the only path to long-term municipal solvency.

“We don’t have a housing problem in this country. We have a model of urbanization problem that masquerades as a housing problem.” — Stefanos Polyzoides, Dean of the Notre Dame School of Architecture
“Jobs really can no longer be the currency we use for economic development… This was not an economic issue; this was an investment issue.” — Dave Weaver, Founder of We Impact
“The suburban areas don’t pay for themselves… all suburbs are going to be underwater forever. They’ll never be bankrupt—they’ve got next year’s tax revenues—but they’ll be insolvent.” — Jim Brainard, Former Mayor of Carmel, Indiana
“The overwhelming pushback I would always get was, ‘Well, we don’t have any money.’ And I said, ‘Well, we never will get any money if we don’t bring the vision together.'” — Rebekah Kik, Assistant City Manager, Kalamazoo, Michigan
“We name every building. We got out of this practice as a culture when we stopped building buildings worth naming.” — Dave Weaver, Founder of We Impact