Speaker: Arthur C. Nelson

Presidential Professor of City & Metropolitan Planning; Director, Metropolitan Research Center, College of Architecture + Planning; Adjunct Professor of Finance, David Eccles School of Business, University OF Utah

Topic: Resetting the Housing Market: Demographic & Economic Drivers to 2020

Description:

Over the next decade, the United States will see an unprecedented change in the underlying demand for new housing. The drivers behind these changes include the aging Baby Boomers, changing attitudes about desirable neighborhood characteristics, changing household dynamics, and changing home ownership financing.

The decade will end with three striking outcomes. First, home ownership will fall to 62% to 64%, the lowest it's been in half a century. Second, half of the demand for all new housing will be for rental housing. Third, increasing household sizes will dampen the demand for new housing construction.

Bio: Dr. Arthur C. (Christian “Chris”) Nelson, FAICP, is Presidential Professor of City & Metropolitan Planning at the University of Utah where he is also Director of the Metropolitan Research Center, Adjunct Professor of Finance in the David Eccles School of Business, and Co-Director of the Master of Real Estate Program. For the past thirty years, Dr. Nelson has conducted pioneering research in growth management, urban containment, public facility finance, economic development, and metropolitan development patterns.

He has written more than 20 books and more than 300 other works. Dr. Nelson serves in various editorial capacities for the Journal of the American Planning Association, Housing Policy Debate Journal of Urban Affairs, Journal of Planning Education and Research, and the Journal of Planning Literature.

Dr. Nelson’s current work focuses on how demographic economic forces along with shifts in housing preference will reshape America’s metropolitan areas for the rest of this century.

Date: March 8, 2011

Location: Seattle Central Library, Microsoft Auditorium, 1000 Fourth Ave., Seattle, WA  98104

Time: Doors open at 5:00PM, Lecture begins at 5:30PM

Cost: Cascadia Members and students; Free (RSVP MANDATORY)
General Audience; $10

The Transformational Lecture Series aims to inspire all building industry professionals to embrace their role in creating as sustainable built environment now, as well as ensuring that sustainability becomes integral to all development in the future. In an effort to both reduce cost and carbon emissions, and to inspire the local community, most speakers are notable local heroes and reside in the Pacific Northwest.