Anita Kramer Visits Knoxville

Anita Kramer, vice president of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Center for Capital Markets and Real Estate, recently made a trip to Knoxville. During her short time here she visited with Planning staff, went on a walking tour, and shared her impression of downtown. She also touched on recent suburban trends emerging throughout the country, especially regarding millennials.

After a stroll through downtown, Kramer said, “If you had to go through a checklist of what makes a cool city, you’ve got the ingredients.”

What are the ingredients she’s talking about?

• Historic buildings (Kramer calls them “good bones”),
• Street grid that promotes walkability and accessibility,
• Open space,
• Bike lanes and greenways, and
• Low cost of living.

As for millennials, she stated that recent trends show, despite their presence in urban centers over the last several years, more are now moving out of center cities and into suburbs. With that comes what ULI has coined “hipsturbias,” or suburban markets that have attributes of downtowns and a similar live-work-play feel found in larger urban centers.

According to Kramer, “You can take the hipster out of the city, but you can’t take the craft beer and scooters out of the hipster!”

We were grateful to spend a few hours during some downtime in her schedule before she shifted gears. Kramer was here for an annual real estate trends and forecasting event where she presented the Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2020 report. Published jointly by ULI and PricewaterhouseCoopers, the report identifies the rising risk of recession and likelihood of a slower rate of economic growth in future years. Despite that, the report states that real estate is still desirable for investors from all over the world. More information about the report can be found here.