Workshop Video: Housing Choice

Mike Watson, AARP: Welcome back. A quick reminder if you've just joined us, please take a moment and join along in the conversation on Twitter by using #AARPLivable, or tag us @AARPLivable. We're about to kick off our next panel conversation, but before we do, I just want to remind you to ask your questions. To do that, you can go to the Q&A tab in Slido. Now you can stay on that same page you had up, or reload it using the QR code on the screen.

So as Rodney shared earlier, over the next two days, we're going to explore four key housing themes. And now we're going to kick off a discussion on our first — Housing Choice. Our next panelists will highlight efforts to diversify housing choices, to provide more options for people of all ages, abilities, and incomes. Rodney, what more should we know? 

Rodney Harrell: Thanks, Mike. You know as you've mentioned, housing options are crucial, and so let's get us started with a couple quick quizzes on that topic. But first, let me say this: I do think it's incredibly important, and we can all agree to this, it's incredibly important to have several housing options so that people can remain in their communities as they age. And so, on that topic, let's go to our first quiz. Now, on your screen should come a Slido question. That question is: How many people say they believe it's important to have more housing types to fit people's needs as they age? Your options are, 33 percent, 47 percent, 59 percent, or 71 percent. And go ahead and choose your answer. So Mike, what are we seeing online here?

Mike Watson: Well, Rodney, I'm looking at it now, and it seems like about two-thirds of folks are kind of saying 71 percent of people believe it's important to have more housing types to fit people's needs as they age, so really kind of a view that most folks want to have a lot of housing types and believe it's very important.

Rodney Harrell: Well I'm glad to hear that so many people of our, on our questions, excuse me, so many people in our audience are thinking that it's important. The correct answer's actually 59 percent, a little bit lower than that, but still more than half. So when we've used AARP's 2022 Home and Community Preferences Survey to ask this question, we found that that 50 percent, more than half of us believe that it is important to have a variety of housing types to fit people's needs as they age. But as we certainly know, it's important for everyone.

So let's move to our next question. It's focused on the topic of accessory dwelling units. Now, you've heard this mentioned early in this conversation a couple of times, but these are small houses or apartments that are built on the same property as a single-family residence, so these units, accessory dwelling units or ADUs can play a major role in providing more options and serve a variety of housing needs. So, our question is: What percentage of older adults say they would consider living in an ADU? Okay, so now your options are 30 percent, 45 percent, 60 percent, or 75 percent. So enter your answers now and let's see what we come up with. Mike, what are we seeing here?

Mike Watson: Well, Rodney, first of all, I think you did a great job by explaining what an ADU is. It's a term that we throw around, but a lot of people might not understand it, and we perhaps should have asked the question, what percentage of folks do we think actually understand what an ADU is. It's clear that our audience does, because about 4 in 10 are saying that half of older adults say they would consider living in an ADU or 45 percent, and that's remaining consistently the highest answer.

Rodney Harrell: Yeah, these backyard apartments, cottage homes, and the like, they're able to provide more options, and it's great to see that response from our audience, but the correct answer is actually 60 percent. So again, according to that same survey, we found that about 3 in 5 of older adults indicate they would consider living in an ADU and I think it would be even higher if more knew about them. So answering that question and watching the videos we just showed should have all of us ready for a great conversation on housing choice that I'm certainly looking forward to. So with that, I'd like to welcome Shannon Guzman, Director of Housing and Livable Communities for the AARP Public Policy Institute who will moderate our next discussion. Shannon, over to you. 

Shannon Guzman: Thanks so much, Rodney. Good afternoon, everyone. Let's introduce our panelists for today.

Emily Hamilton is a Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Urbanity Project at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Her research focuses on urban economics and land use policy.

Tya Winn is the Executive Director of the Community Design Collaborative, a Philadelphia based architectural nonprofit, and an advocate for affordable housing and community development. I think we have a poll question coming up for us soon.

Adults living alone account for nearly 30 percent of U.S. households. And that's a growing phenomenon across all ages and incomes. Meanwhile, the housing supply in many communities has been slow to meet the demands of this burgeoning market or respond to the needs of increasingly varied living arrangements. Longstanding zoning regulations that have traditionally favored the standard single-family home make it difficult for alternatives to materialize. The result is a mismatch between the diversity of the nation's households and the homogeneity of its housing. So we'd like to pose the question to our audience members: Which of the following housing types would you like to see more of in your community?

The options are accessory dwelling units, Missing Middle Housing, manufactured homes, multifamily projects, or shared housing. And you can select as many as you like.

Okay, great. So it looks like missing middle housing, which has been referred to a lot today, so those are those smaller housing types that are in-between single-family homes and large scale, multifamily housing developments, those types of housing like garden-style apartments and ADUs and duplexes and the like, kind of won out in that poll. So Tya, Emily, do you have any thoughts to share about these results and what we saw there?

Emily Hamilton: I think it's encouraging that we some support for all of the different types of housing. Personally, I think we need absolutely all of those in our communities, and I think it's encouraging to see support for missing middle in particular, since there's a lot of policy momentum behind that one right now.

Shannon Guzman: Great, Tya?

Tya Winn: Yeah, I think one thing that's great is that Missing Middle sort of encapsulates and could include some of the other categories that people were picking, and I think depending on cities and market, missing middle becomes something that can be tailored specifically to the needs in that specific community which make it a great sort of, you know, bridge between sort of high-rise and single-family.

Shannon Guzman: Right. So it looks like there's space and support for a lot of housing to meet those varying household needs at different age groups or lifestyles. So our first question is for Emily. So you've done extensive research into the American housing market, the current rapid housing shortages, and the most effective avenues we can pursue for reform. What do you believe is the single most important zoning change that communities can make to advance housing choice? What are the entry points for local leaders and advocates who want to diversify housing options for older adults and people of all ages?

Emily Hamilton: If I could pick one single zoning change, I would encourage local leaders to reform minimum lot sizes to allow houses to be built on lots that are smaller than what is currently permitted. This can facilitate infill development within existing neighborhoods if, for example, more than one house is permitted to be built on a lot where currently just one house stands, and small lot single-family development can work really well for households of all different types, adults living alone who might not want a lot of yard to take care of, families who want to live close to urban amenities, really anyone who is looking for a single-family house but in a much smaller amount of space than what's typically permitted today.

Houston is my favorite example of successful minimum lot size reform where they've reduced the minimum lot size requirement for 5,000-square-feet down to 1,400-square-feet allowing there houses to replace one. As far as an entry point for policymakers, I think accessory dwelling units are the right place to start. We've seen a lot of support for them in the polls today, and they are probably the lowest hanging fruit politically as far as allowing a little bit more housing to be built in the neighbors where people already live.

Shannon Guzman: Sure, we've definitely seen a lot of momentum for ADUs across the country both with people having interest in them, learning more about them, and also localities pursuing actions, either changing their policies that they have in place, or looking to create new policies. So that's great. So Tya, do you have any additional thoughts on Emily's response?

Tya Winn: I think for me it would be inclusionary zoning. I think across the pandemic and even before the pandemic, we have seen most large American cities have just unattainable housing markets. And I think we're not going to start see any, we're not going to start to see sort of the gap shortened until we're really forced to produce more affordable and a wider arrangement and diversity of options for people that are looking for housing and want to remain in cities.

Shannon Guzman: That's great. So a very targeted approach to really tackling the issue of creating more housing which was for specific communities as well. Great. So Tya, this next question is for you. You've approached the issue of housing choice from the perspective of an architect and affordable housing advocate. The Community Design Collaborative strengthens neighborhoods through design and has completed 1,000+ projects totaling over $13 million in value in the nonprofit's history. What have you learned about revitalizing communities by enabling a greater diversity of housing options? How can the design community and other advocates act to bring more options for people to live in the neighborhoods and the communities of their choice?

Tya Winn: I think that's a great question. I think one thing that we've learned is that people have varying opinions, and even in a single community, you're going to have a diversity of stakeholders who have their own perceptions of how they should live and there's not one size fits all. So you do need to have a plethora of options for people at both, for economic reasons, I think for household size, and for lifestyle reasons to be able to support a better quality of life.

I think from a design standpoint, it's important for designers to do two things. One, I think we need to use our design skills to be able to start to visualize and envision and then translate to the greater public what some of these options could look like, and I think the second thing we need to be able to do is to use our powers as sort of citizen advocates, citizen architects in the space to really push for policy changes and reform in our city. Many cities, and I think of where I am in Philadelphia, it's really hard to do things like cohousing, right, or even accessory dwelling units. And a lot of that is because a lot of the policymakers don't understand what they could look like and some of the necessary needs that we need to do to grow back our zoning or our city codes to be able to accommodate them in existence. And so I think that's something where architects really need to do more work to be able to sort of advocate for different options that we can then help move forward.

Shannon Guzman: That's great. I think, you know, kind of showing what's possible in this space can really illuminate this issue for a lot of folks instead of talking about it just from a policy perspective, kind of showcasing what these different housing types could actually look like through conversations with the design community and some of their work. That's great. Emily, do you have any thoughts, or do you want to weigh in on Tya's comments?

Emily Hamilton: Yeah, I think Tya makes fantastic points, and particularly when we're talking about something like accessory dwelling units, it's really important for homeowners to have easy access to understand what this unit might look like on their property, and it's also really important for all of the policies to be in place that make these units feasible to build. Where I live in Washington D.C., ADUs are permitted in D.C. and many of the surrounding counties, but we're seeing very few of them getting built because of some of the remaining barriers to do so.

Just one example in D.C. is that ADUs must have separate utility metering from the principle dwelling unit, and if we're talking about building a basement apartment in an existing basement, separating those utilities can add $10,000 or more to the cost of just building that ADU, so it could be the difference between an ADU making sense for a homeowner or not being feasible by having that requirement in place. We're seeing some places in Southern California where all of the rules are in place to make ADUs feasible to build, and they're becoming a very important source of new housing supply there as a result.

Shannon Guzman: So it's good for homeowners and local officials to really think through how some of these policies impact really the bottom line on whether or not they can be able to develop and build an ADU for themselves. So that's important for local officials to really think about as they craft these type of policies. Thank you for that.

So I have a question for the both of you now. So you both have worked to champion accessory dwelling units that we've been talking about, ADUs, as an affordable, flexible housing option that meets the needs of older adults and young families alike. What do you see as the potential and promise of this particular housing type, and how can communities confront the nimbyism that can discourage new development? Tya, do you want to start?

Tya Winn: Sure, I can start. One, I think from a potential standpoint, I think one of the great things the ADU provides is it's a smaller unit. In Philadelphia, we already have the rowhouse which is one of those smaller forms and typologies for single-family housing with most of them being somewhere between 1,000- and 1,400-square-feet. But one thing that we found is that as the city has gotten more and more unaffordable, that it's still something that a lot of our population cannot access. And like I'm a single person, a rowhouse is still a big impact, like from a space perspective for a person as a single-family or a single-person household.

And so I think one thing that the ADUs provide are sort of flexibility. I think it's a great opportunity one, if you're an empty nester, or if you are a single mom with a single kid. I think it's also great for people that are just getting out of school, returning citizens, there's a lot of people that are in like these transitional housing opportunities, and some of them stay in them for a long time. I've had some people live in that type of space for their entire tenure as adults. So it allows you this flexibility to customize something that if you do not need the larger unit, which I think is really important.

Shannon Guzman: That's great. Thanks, Tya. And Emily.

Emily Hamilton: Yes, I completely agree on the benefits of flexibility with ADUs. They allow people to have different housing choices within a single neighborhood that might meet their needs at different stages of life. I think one other important piece of promise from ADUs is that they can be a starting point for allowing more different types of housing to be built in a neighborhood or in a larger jurisdiction. And we've seen this again in California where several years ago state policymakers began the process of making ADUs broadly feasible for homeowners across the state to build, and they've taken further steps to allow duplexes across the state, to allow lot splits where a single lot can be divided into two to accommodate two households, and allowing for more multifamily housing. So I think that ADUs can be a step toward permitting really the full spectrum of housing to be built that meets a community's needs.

Shannon Guzman: That's great. So Emily, I like the idea of ADUs being this part of this, or the initial step of this gradual process as we introduce new housing types within a community, and that people can see that it can be in their backyard, that they can see that it's not something that's out of the norm for a community to have, overtime it will just become just part of the community. And Tya, I like your conversation about flexibility as well. We also talk about ADUs as helping out with people who want to age in place or a space for a family caregiver. And as we've seen during the majority of the initial phases of our pandemic, that people needed extra space for workspace or for home offices and things like that, and so they really provide a lot of options for households who want to build them. So that's great.

So in our remaining time, I'm going to ask you both questions which I'm hoping to get some quick responses from you before we wrap up. So our final question is: Throughout this workshop, we want to equip our participants with tools and resources and strategies for getting work done in communities. So with that in mind, what should we each be ready to do different as a result of this particular panel?

Emily Hamilton: Well my work is focused on housing policy, but ultimately, I don't think we're going to see big policy changes that allow more lower cost housing to be built without a change in communities that support and accept more and different types of housing being built. So I would encourage everyone watching today to say yes to more housing in their neighborhoods, in their communities, maybe even in their own backyard with an ADU.

Shannon Guzman: Tya.

Tya Winn: I think it's also education, right. One, I think we have to both do more to educate individually ourselves as well as our neighbors, our friends, our colleagues as we're working. I think secondly, we need to have more conversations at the local level and at the grassroots level. I think oftentimes people feel like they didn't have a seat at the table and some of that nimbyism is a visceral response to feeling like a decision was made without them, and by having more of those conversations earlier in planning processes, you can sort of avoid some of that, or at least use that time to educate and change opinions.

Shannon Guzman: Yeah, Tya, I really like that point. That kind of echoes what we heard from Secretary Fudge earlier about being able to talk to your neighbors and start having those conversations with folks so that they have just a better understanding of the issues that people may be facing in the community as well as what those solutions are in terms of housing as well. And I think, Emily, you're saying for people to just say yes is really important. Because when you think about housing, it may be the thought that this is not, this is about people you don't necessarily know, but it's really about things that could help you in the future, your housing choices to meet your needs as well.

So with that, I just want to thank you both for being here. Thank you for sharing your perspectives and insights on how we can expand housing options so that people have better choices when they're searching for housing to meet their needs. And with that I will turn it back to our emcees.

Mike Watson, AARP: Thank you, Shannon. Thank you, Tya. Thank you, Emily. It's now going to be your chance to ask your questions in just a moment, but before we get to those, I want to turn it over to Rodney Harrell here with me in the studio to provide a few quick reactions and thoughts based on that really insightful conversation.

Rodney Harrell, AARP: I think...

Mike Watson: What are you thinking?

Rodney Harrell: I think it was really insightful, Mike. And what I really liked was that we discussed not just the challenges that can come from single-family zoning, from zoning limitations of all kinds, minimal lot sizes and the like, to also the benefits of things like inclusionary zoning, and the ways we can bring more options into communities. It's crucial that we think about providing more choice through overcoming barriers and putting into place things that expand options, and also, by the way, to one of the last points made, it isn't just a policy conversation, it's also about what we can do in our communities, whether we are actually one to help change policies ourselves, or even as the Secretary mentioned, do we want to talk to our neighbors and help move the conversation along. So it's really great to hear kind of a fulsome discussion about all the pieces of creating more choice.

Mike Watson: Thanks, Rodney. That was a great add to that really fantastic conversation that we just had. Really excited now to get into the live Q&A that we see coming up. One of the things that we're really seeing in this Q&A question, is questions around short-term rentals. We're also seeing questions around what are the benefits of ADUs for renters and others. We're seeing questions about how to build and finance an ADU, and plenty of questions about AARP's role in accessory dwelling units. So we'll share a little bit more about AARP's work on accessory dwelling units, much of it is on our website as well as right here.

And one of the ways that AARP is working to incentivize and help communities build more accessory dwelling units or carriage houses, English basements and more, is through advocacy; AARP state offices are working at the federal, state, and local level. AARP is also sharing information and best practices of what communities are doing. And finally, we're putting our money where our mouth is, and we're supporting communities who are working to make investments and change their policy to make ADUs a little bit easier to permit, make them a little bit more permissive, and start changing that conversation to the yes conversation that Emily, Tya, and Shannon were just talking about. Rodney, anything else you want to add to that?

Rodney Harrell: I just love how, we mentioned ADUs and how much they can really bring options to existing communities. Again, we're talking about choice here, and for decades we built communities only for single-family housing, with the idea that we can't have housing of other types in communities. And so we were talking about ADUs or missing middle housing, it's really the way that we provide options that meet our needs. And if you think about it, we have different types of families, and the unexpected often happens. Sometimes we might lose a family member, or our income might drop, or we might have some kind of physical issue or disability. We might need a caregiver. So our needs change over time, but our communities often just don't have enough choices. There's one type of single-family home that may work for families with children as the primary target audience for that, but then for many others, it creates limitations.

You know, many older adults are single-family households, right, and so many of them are in houses that may not have what they need, and I've heard horror stories, Mike, about people that can't even get up the stairs in their home, but they stay there because that's the only choice they have to stay in the neighborhood where they are next to the grocery stores or the shops and their friends and the religious institutions and the other things that they have become associated with. And so it's just a huge issue in this country to not have enough options, which is why I'm glad that we have things like our Accessory Dwelling Unit Model Act, our new Missing Middle work, and others are pushing these same kind of options so that we can create more housing so that people have a better chance of finding a home that meets their needs in a community that they want to live in. That's really what we should have as a goal as a nation, and so the work that we're talking about on this panel, and the work that we're doing and others are doing, really helps us get to more of that. Ideally, people will be able to have the options that they need and not have to leave their community to find them.

Mike Watson: Very well said, Rodney, and I think you just described the situation that every single-family tuning in today is experiencing, or will experience at some point in their life. So with that, a terrific kind of recap of the panel and lead into more discussions here. It's now time to answer your questions, and we're really pleased to have Shannon and Tya back with us to answer your questions. With that, we're going to go ahead and jump in.

So the first question that we're seeing, we're seeing a lot of dialog here in the chat and in the Q&A about short-term rentals. And how, at the community level, at the state level, the policy level, and the engagement level, local level, what, how do you kind of reconcile and balance the consumers over short-term rentals and affordable housing with the kind of need to say yes and permit this new type of housing option in communities? Emily, I'm going to turn it to you first, and then Tya.

Emily Hamilton: Oh, I can certainly see what, in some cases, neighbors have concerns about short-term rentals, particularly in the cities and neighborhoods where they have become super prevalent in some cases. But in other cases, short-term rentals can really be a boon for things like ADUs where a homeowner might initially build a short-term rental as an ADU, and then down the road, as the homeowner ages, perhaps they'll move into that ADU them self, or use it for a family member at some point. So they can really support long-term housing in some cases.

Mike Watson: Very well said. Tya, would you like to add anything to that?

Tya Winn: Yeah, I think it's important to remember two things. One, if a person is renting out something as a short-term rental, one, who is the owner, right. Typically if it's an owner/occupied structure and they're renting out an additional unit or an ADU, it's from a financial reason, right. For some reason they need to kind of cover the cost. I think two, is being really clear who the landlords are. I think we've seen a big push in most major cities of large conglomerates coming in, buying up lots of units, and taking supply out of the market. I think when people talk about affordable housing, that's typically the thing that they're most concerned about, and I think affordable housing developers aren't keeping pace with some of the larger real estate entities that are coming in and doing like massive short-term rentals. And so I think it's being able to moderate and establish who is doing it. Again, ADUs have oftentimes been sort of a temporary housing solution, and so I think there's probably ways to converse with your neighbor when it's a local person versus when it's a major company.

Mike Watson: Very well said from both of you. Thank you for that. I think it's, again, a really kind of area of a lot of conversation that we see across the country. I'm sure you do as well. And also in the chat and the Q&A here. One of the things we're also seeing kind of rise up in the Q&A is questions and conversation around typical restrictions that communities are seeing with regards to accessory dwelling units. You've both talked about the importance of saying yes and overcoming some of those barriers. Can you really quickly recap for this audience what are the typical barriers to construction of ADUs in communities, and what are the policy changes that communities are undertaking to make sure that they can actually happen? Let's start with you, Emily, and then go to you, Tya.

Emily Hamilton: Sure. I point to three key barriers. The first is requiring parking for an ADU. Many homeowners have space for an ADU or an additional parking spot, but not both. The second is permitting ADUs by right, because requiring a homeowner to go through a process where they might need to get plans for an ADU without knowing that it will be approved can be really burdensome, and the third is requiring owner/occupancy requirements, which can be a real barrier to ADU construction, even for a homeowner who just want to build an ADU at their own property.

Mike Watson: Very well said. I think you summed it up pretty well there. Tya, is there anything you want to add to that?

Tya Winn: Yeah, I think I would add, I think one, the permitting process is absolutely critical and to double-down on what was already said, I think that is the thing that has caused a major barrier. And one thing I think we have in place here in Philadelphia is restricting the types of properties or the districts where ADUs can be built. Right now in Philadelphia, it's only in historic overlays, which then makes is really difficult to kind of determine where it can or can't happen. I think the third thing that causes major cost concerns is when you have a single-family attached housing typology, so if you're in D.C., Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia where we have attached small homes, and you're trying to build the ADU at the rear, I think often not having alleys or not having a direct access to the street creates another barrier for construction as well as for occupation and trying to deal with rules around utilities and such and addresses.

Mike Watson: Thank you for both of you for those answers. I thought that was a really great summary of that. Rodney and I were just chatting earlier today, and he kind of made it clear to me that one of the phrases that AARP uses, and Rodney in particular, when he talks about these barriers, is calling them poison pills. They're the things that stop progress and make it more difficult. So I think you provide some really great solutions on how to overcome those poison pills in local policy.

With that, we're kind of moving down to the next set of questions that we're seeing here. One of the things that you both talked about is kind of the cutting through the red tape. We're seeing a lot of folks asking questions about how can I permit, get my ADUs permitted more quickly, what are some of the existing red tape that folks are encountering, and one of the solutions that we're seeing here in the chat is perhaps around model plan designs, and model permits. Is there anything you want to say on those and what communities can touch on? Emily, let's start with you, and Shannon, or Tya.

Emily Hamilton: Yeah, I think having sample ADU plans in place can be really helpful, and in the case of prefabricated ADUs, that can make it particularly easy for a homeowner to say, oh, I think this exact ADU model that's available from perhaps a local company that's already approved in my locality. That can make the process of adding a backyard ADU as simple as possible.

Mike Watson: Very well said, Emily. Tya, do you want to answer the next piece of that?

Tya Winn: I think locality is absolutely critical. I think oftentimes people see references or examples that are from other parts of the country. I'm on the East Coast, and a lot of the ADU examples have come out of say, Seattle, or have come out of California, and they're not directly applicable here in Philadelphia. I think the first key is to make sure that you're working with a designer or someone that understands your local codes and your local restrictions. And I think secondly, if you're going to look at something that's form-based or that's sort of prefabrication, that you're buying and purchased from local vendors that understand the local market, so you don't run into any issues once you're trying to bring it into occupation.

Mike Watson: Thank you both for that answer. We have time for one final question for this panel. And with September being National Preparedness Month, one of the questions that we're seeing pop up is around accessory dwelling units and disaster preparedness and disaster response. Is there anything you can share with our listeners today about how accessory dwelling units fit into that when communities are dealing with more frequent disasters and responding and what the role is of ADUs, and what are some considerations that communities need to weigh when they're weighing these policies. Tya, let's start with you and then go to Emily.

Tya Winn: I think one thing that we need to think about in sort of emergency situations is also that this is a temporary solution, and I think if people are trying to employ ADUs solely as a temp solution, there are probably better solutions, whereas I think that having ADUs as a typology, whether they're attached to a unit or on top or behind a unit, it does give you this flexibility that when things happen, you kind of have a unit that can sort of be deployed quickly, and hopefully more quickly than a full regular housing unit that allows you to kind of tailor responses as necessary.

Emily Hamilton: There is that reduced housing market flexibility all the time and make it really difficult and expensive to build new housing, cause the most severe problems in the case of disaster recovery, when it's really crucial to be able to rebuild as quickly as possible for health and safety and for the sake of communities remaining places that can be home to their residents after a disaster. ADUs are certainly one case where we can see the difference that a streamlined and workable permitting system makes in order to make it feasible to build new housing relatively quickly.

Mike Watson: That was very well said by both of you. Thank you for adding that piece to this really important conversation. And I want to thank you all so much for joining us, Shannon, Emily, and Tya. That was really fantastic. Rodney, I also want to thank you for sharing your thoughts during it as well. What's next in the program?

Rodney Harrell: Well next we have an exciting conversation about innovation. But before I do that, though, I want to give one quick plug to AARP.org/ADUs, and we mentioned in the last conversation about design and inspiration for others. One of those things you'll find there is our step-by-step guide to design and development that has sample designs for ADUs, so hopefully they'll inspire some of you. But now, we'll hear from some livability experts, local leaders, and community volunteers across the country who, like many of you, are participating in our workshop as part of this innovation showcase series. So we'll watch a video package that will last about 15 minutes, and after that, we'll return with some more live programming. Let's take a look.