You are blending of my two passions - livable places and independent kids! I have a financing question - I've heard that developers trying to build the right thing have a big financing barrier, because the usual real estate lenders don't like new things and can't model the upside of this kind of property. Is there a loan fund out there that gets it? In regenerative agriculture, there's Steward (https://gosteward.com/) - what's the equivalent?
That’s a good question, and it is an ongoing challenge in real estate. Historically, Community Banks were more open to innovation and trying different concepts, but they have been losing capital to institutional and neo banks. There are crowdfunding options in real estate that sound a bit like Steward, but I don’t know a lot about them. (Ref: https://www.investopedia.com/the-best-real-estate-crowdfunding-sites-8761523)
Love, love, love the new title and the ideas behind it! When my kids were younger, early elementary years, I organize "free range summer camp" for them--days at a park, a half dozen kids, a cooler for food & drink and a parent who brought a book or work, and just hung out somewhere nearby, for safety--while the kids did kid things, largely unsupervised, the entire day. Parents took turns, different parks--and it was a blast!
We never lived in a free range city--but we saw our German friends live that way, and envied them. At age 13, my son got an e-bike, which finally allowed him to efficiently cover the hilly, hot 4-8 miles needed to hang out with his friends in our very spread out suburb. A few weeks in, he told me he loved his bike because it was his "freedom machine." Enabling kids to have autonomy is huge. As Lenore Skenazy, Free Range Mom, has put it, it's essential to prevent anxiety and many other modern ills.
Looking forward to reading a lot more here, and learning with and from you!
Much better name.
I think you might find this article quite interesting given the shift
https://stratechery.com/2025/robotaxis-and-suburbia/
You are blending of my two passions - livable places and independent kids! I have a financing question - I've heard that developers trying to build the right thing have a big financing barrier, because the usual real estate lenders don't like new things and can't model the upside of this kind of property. Is there a loan fund out there that gets it? In regenerative agriculture, there's Steward (https://gosteward.com/) - what's the equivalent?
That’s a good question, and it is an ongoing challenge in real estate. Historically, Community Banks were more open to innovation and trying different concepts, but they have been losing capital to institutional and neo banks. There are crowdfunding options in real estate that sound a bit like Steward, but I don’t know a lot about them. (Ref: https://www.investopedia.com/the-best-real-estate-crowdfunding-sites-8761523)
It’s an area of need!
Love, love, love the new title and the ideas behind it! When my kids were younger, early elementary years, I organize "free range summer camp" for them--days at a park, a half dozen kids, a cooler for food & drink and a parent who brought a book or work, and just hung out somewhere nearby, for safety--while the kids did kid things, largely unsupervised, the entire day. Parents took turns, different parks--and it was a blast!
We never lived in a free range city--but we saw our German friends live that way, and envied them. At age 13, my son got an e-bike, which finally allowed him to efficiently cover the hilly, hot 4-8 miles needed to hang out with his friends in our very spread out suburb. A few weeks in, he told me he loved his bike because it was his "freedom machine." Enabling kids to have autonomy is huge. As Lenore Skenazy, Free Range Mom, has put it, it's essential to prevent anxiety and many other modern ills.
Looking forward to reading a lot more here, and learning with and from you!