If I had to explain my philosophy in two words, they would be “information equity.”

As the Principal of Urban3, my job is to travel around the country and talk to people about how their community is going broke, and why tax systems are to blame. These are complex issues that are baked into every aspect of our lives, whether or not we can see them, and they demand us all to look at our communities from a fresh perspective. I can’t assume that our message is obvious, even to elected officials and planners who are immersed in statistics and public policy every day.

I ran into this communication barrier head-first about ten years ago when I was working as a project manager for a real estate development company in Asheville, North Carolina called Public Interest Projects. We were looking to develop in a neglected section of Asheville, just off the main downtown core. We saw so much potential for infill, and were hopeful that the City would see it as a financial boon. We proposed a mixed-use building consisting of street-level retail, a hotel, needed city parking, and residences all in one acre. What was not to love?

But when it came time to get approval from the City, folks hemmed and hawed. It was too complicated for people to get their brains around. Public Interest Projects had long advocated the economic and environmental benefits of urbanism, but the key was showing people the math. So we embarked on comparing the impact of different development types and scales on the tax rolls. We had to demonstrate the benefits of mixed-use development compared with single-use suburban buildings. Partly out of frustration, we came up with this apples-to-apples graphic to normalize the differences between the two development patterns and prove the financial productivity of this beautiful downtown-style building. People had to see the difference.