Realtopia - Real Estate for Teens
Real estate. Real conversations. Hosted by a teenager trying to understand the world she’s about to inherit.I’m Naomi Cohen, and I created Realtopia — a real estate podcast for teenagers, by a teenager.What began as a podcast about real estate evolved into conversations about something even bigger: how places shape people, and how people shape places. Because real estate was never just about buildings. It’s about the future of places — cities, housing, belonging, design, community, and the people shaping them.Each episode, I ask architects, developers, researchers, founders, and urban thinkers the questions teenagers are not supposed to...
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Episode 19: Dr. Katherine Loflin (The City Doctor) — Can Love for a Place Be Measured?
Can something as personal as loving where you live actually be measured?<br /><br />Naomi sits down with Dr. Katherine Loflin, known as The City Doctor and a pioneer of place science. At the Knight Foundation, Katherine led the Soul of the Community study with Gallup — three years of research across 26 communities and more than 40,000 interviews asking two deceptively simple questions: What makes people love where they live, and why does it matter? <br /><br />The results were remarkably consistent. The strongest drivers of attachment were not jobs, schools, or basic services, but three softer qualities: social offerings, aesthetics, and ope...
Episode 18: Melody Warnick (Author) — Can You Learn to Love Where You Live?
Can you learn to love where you live — or are some places simply a better fit than others? <br /><br />Naomi sits down with Melody Warnick, journalist and author of This Is Where You Belong and If You Could Live Anywhere. After moving six times by her mid-30s, Melody arrived in Blacksburg, Virginia — and initially wanted to leave. Instead, she began experimenting with what researchers call place attachment: the feeling of being deeply at home where you live. <br /><br />She tried walking more, buying local, meeting neighbors, volunteering, exploring nature, and becoming a regular at a local restaurant — an exp...
Episode 17: Ethan Kent (PlacemakingX) — How Placemaking Creates Belonging
What turns a space into a place — and can belonging actually be designed? <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />They...
Episode 16: Charles Montgomery (Author) — Happy Cities, Trust & the Design of Belonging
Can the places we live actually make us trust each other more?<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />In this episode:<br />• How ci...
Episode 15: Nolan Gray (Research Director, California YIMBY) — How Zoning Shapes Cities, Housing, and Belonging
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? <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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? <br /><br />In this episode:<br />What zoning really controlsThe ideas behind the YIMBY movementHousing, affordab...
Episode 14: Prof. Greg Clark (Advisor to 400+ Cities) — Cracking the DNA of Great Cities
Why does one city feel instantly recognizable while another could be almost anywhere? <br /><br />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. <br /><br />Together, they unpack the idea of a city’s DNA — the combination of inherited geography, historical choices, culture, institutions, and new adaptations that shape ho...
Episode 13: Dr. Toby Israel (Founder of Design Psychology) — Decoding the Hidden Psychology of Home
Why do some spaces instantly feel right — while others never quite do? <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. Instea...
Episode 12: Prof. Marc Norman (Associate Dean of NYU Schack) — Solving the Homeownership Crisis
What if the housing crisis isn’t just about prices — but about a century of rules that quietly erased some of the most affordable ways people used to live? <br /><br />In this episode of Realtopia, Naomi speaks with Professor Marc Norman, Associate Dean of NYU Schack, about what’s broken in the housing system — and what it would take to fix it. <br /><br />Marc explains why affordable housing is often misunderstood, how postwar zoning rules made duplexes, fourplexes, and other “missing middle” housing nearly illegal, and why those choices helped shape today’s homeownership crisis. They explore new ideas like nei...
Episode 11: Dr. Colin Ellard (University of Waterloo, Author) — The Psychology of Home
In this episode of Realtopia, Naomi sits down with Dr. Colin Ellard, professor at the University of Waterloo and author of Places of the Heart, to explore how the spaces around us shape our emotions, behavior, and sense of belonging. <br /><br />From city streets to living rooms, Dr. Ellard explains how our environment directly impacts our brains—sometimes in ways we don’t even notice. The conversation dives into the science of psychogeography, revealing how design choices like building facades, density, and access to nature can influence mood, stress, and even long-term health.<br /><br />They discuss:What psychogeography is an...
Episode 10: Majora Carter (Princeton University, TED Speaker) — Regenerative Cities
In this episode of Realtopia, Naomi speaks with Majora Carter about urban revitalization, environmental justice, and what it takes to build communities where residents can stay and thrive.<br /><br />Drawing from her experience in the South Bronx, Majora shares a powerful perspective on rebuilding neighborhoods from within. The conversation explores how perception shapes opportunity, the difference between regenerative and extractive development, and why creating real economic pathways within communities is essential.<br /><br /><br />They discuss:What urban revitalization looks like when it truly improves people’s livesThe difference between regenerative and extractive developmentHow perception influences investment and opportunity in...
