TTR | “Twitter Talk Radio” Hosts Bruzenskey Bois
TTR | “Twitter Talk Radio” Hosts Bruzenskey Bois
Lasting change comes through placemaking.
Bruzenskey Bois is a real estate developer and property manager, based in Tampa, Florida. He’s the co-founder of People Places Management and manages over $12 million in real estate assets. He’s also the co-founder of the Congressional Black Caucus for New Urbanism (CBCNU) and was the most recent guest on Southern Urbanism’s Twitter Talk Radio.
In the civic design world, New Urbanism is a modern term for an ancient concept: walkable blocks, housing and shopping in close proximity, and accessible public spaces. Bruzenskey sees New Urbanism as a hip-hop approach to real estate, mixing non-original ideas to come up with something new and innovative:
Nipsey Hussle built storefronts the same way he made songs and beats: by using scraps and shreds of existing material and remixing them into thrilling new compositions. In many of the urban communities that gave birth to hip hop, from Los Angeles to New York to the American South, people are adapting this same approach to real estate: taking existing elements of the built environment and breathing new life into them.
Southern cities don’t have to be rebuilt from a blank slate of ideas. There are existing elements of good urbanism that can be blended to form new neighborhood compositions.
In this episode, Bruzenskey touches on the perceptions of urbanism, exposing the connection made between “urban” or “affordable” and being “Black.” But for him, that’s all wrong. New Urbanist ideals are not merely centered around subsidies and poorly arranged density. As he put it: “A New Urbanist place allows for multiple classes of people to thrive within that community. It allows people to enjoy what they need within a 15-minute walk radius. And it has health benefits that come from being able to walk.”
Some of Bruzenskey’s favorite places blend architecture, indoor/outdoor spaces, and historic preservation. But the ultimate test isn’t watching a single twenty-something ride a fixie bike down the street—it’s ensuring young kids are comfortable in the space. “We have to take it upon ourselves to educate our youth,” he said. “If we don’t, we continue to lose our greatest asset: our towns.”
Education is more than an idea for Bruzenskey. He is bringing four of his kids, ages 11 through 15, to CNU31 in Charlotte this week. He’s treating it like a paid internship, engaging them in conversations about the built environment, and plans on quizzing them later.
In her famous book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs describes four key elements of urban design: density, varied buildings, mixed uses, and short blocks. Bruzenskey discusses how his understanding of these four pillars plays into his work as a developer and property manager.
He believes that the neighborhood should be understood as “a living organism” and that “there’s power in that organism.” Education is the key, and one priority of CBCNU. They’re using real-world case studies to teach potential developers about the practical outcomes of population density, building types, building uses, and the surrounding street designs. It’s not just shop talk for citizen builders; it’s a new, empowered way of moving forward.
Listen to the entire conversation here.
“Build Better Cities on Twitter Talk Radio” is hosted by Southern Urbanism Media Director Andy Boenau. Follow us on Twitter for announcements on schedule and upcoming guests.