Michael Banner

One-on-One with Michael Banner
February 2009, Urban LAndscape
Interviewer: Davina Price

Michael Banner, President and CEO of the Los Angeles LDC, Inc., and former Chair of ULI Los Angeles shares his experience as Chair, his founding of the Urban Marketplace and his life growing up and working in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles LDC, Inc. is a mission-driven non-profit community development finance company committed to providing capital and advisory services to foster positive community development impacts in distressed neighborhoods. Since its inception, the LDC has arranged or funded over $250,000,000 of financing for businesses and real estate development projects in distressed communities in Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties.

Describe your experience as chair?

Challenging, rewarding and impactful.

When your day job is to lead your own non-profit enterprise and then you accept the responsibility of leading the LA District Council Executive Committee, one of the highest profile district councils in the Urban Land Institute, you have accepted a big challenge. I felt the self imposed pressure of not only maintaining but extending the reach of ULI Los Angeles into new markets and knew I had to bring my "A" game to succeed.

I run the LDC with a small staff and quickly realized the time I spent leading ULI Los Angeles was time diverted away from the LDC's mission, so as Chair you have to find ways to balance these interest and learn to make the needs of both organizations reach alignment. Being the first person of color to Chair the LA District Council was important and I was elated when John Menne asked me to consider accepting the position as his successor. It literally took me two seconds to say "sure." I felt I had an opportunity to bring a unique perspective about how a more diverse membership could provide a more rewarding experience for all members. ULI Los Angeles reached 2,000 members during my tenure as Chair.

One of the most important things that occurred during my two years as Chair was having the dual role as Chair of the District Council and Trustee for the Institute. This duality of leadership within ULI both locally and nationally put me in a unique professional position. I actually became a voice, which probably could not have happened with such impact without the ability to represent a brand as well respected and as powerful as the ULI.

What was your motivation for starting Urban Marketplace?

After the civil disturbance that led to the efforts of Rebuild LA, and later RLA, there was a feeling by a group folks that there was still unfinished business in LA's underserved neighborhoods. I had recently been appointed to ULI's national Inner City Advisor program as the representative from Los Angeles and wanted to bring the benefits and my expertise to the District Council. Alex Rose introduced me to Bob Arbor, Chair of the Inner City Policy Committee, and I suggested using the format of a ULI Spring Council meeting to the district council level. Our working group agreed to limit our scope to the geography of the RLA neighborhoods. While the idea of focusing on the geography was a collaborative effort, implementation required heavy lifting. I played a leadership role by aligning the LDC's stakeholders and ULI experts to make things happen and produce quality programming. I leveraged my relationships with several financial institutions that had strong reinvestment commitments to the distressed census tracts (geography) to which we had limited the focus of the Urban Marketplace. If you go to an Urban Marketplace event, it is the most diverse ULI event you will attend. We kept it affordable so price would not be a barrier for anyone who wanted to attend; especially, the residents and community members.

How do you feel it has benefited the urban real estate community?

Clearly, the topic of discussion got more people in the room than anyone had ever imagined. It began a consistent dialogue to seriously look at transactions or opportunities in the distressed neighborhoods of Los Angeles, and a forum to help us understand what could happen in those communities. While we have never tried to quantify the results of the event, it is clear that we have helped to foster an environment where the larger real estate industry has begun to pay attention to underserved markets. In some manner, I believe Urban Marketplace helped to redefine the Urban Land Institute in domestic markets.

What is your opinion of the current economic climate and how it is affecting the community?

The climate is so bad that "bank" has become a four-letter word. The broader economy has to shrink or contract as we learn to function without access to easy credit and unsustainable business models driven by significant consumer spending. We will probably return to a time were leverage is not a given. Since 1988, I have always worked in distressed neighborhoods and I now wonder where will the newly-perceived underserved neighborhoods during this recessionary period.

Whats books are you reading right now?

Just finished The Snowball: Warren Buffet and the Business of Life by Ann Schroeder. I'm reading Malcolm Douglas' Outliers. In fact he's been a speaker for ULI and his book devotes a chapter to the KIPP Academy's success in educating inner city kids. It motivates me to give more of my time to the Los Angeles Urban Plan program and encourage others to follow my example of each one teach one.

Is there a community in LA that you have a special place in your heart for?

Watts, where I grew up. In fact an Advisory Services panel has been scheduled to February to advise the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles on redevelopment of the Jordan Downs public housing project. It's a tough community, and emblematic of a number of communities in Los Angeles which lack good economic fundamentals where there is no industry or economic driver. It is my old neighborhood. We lost those economic drivers 40 to 50 years ago and we've never been able to grow another one. It is just like a small town that has a factory and everyone works at the factory. We've lost the factories in urban America and as a nation we haven't been able to figure out how to replicate that economic energy in a thoughtful way.

How would you envision LA 20 years from now?

I hope that in 20 years we have dealt with our lack of mass transit. We have to figure out a way to get public transportation working throughout the region. In my opinion, it would be a huge accomplishment because it would de-emphasize the need to have a car and force people to interact by creating more a pedestrian-friendly living environment.

Davina Price, Housing Consultant, finds and secures private, municipal and state funding for the development of affordable housing programs. Building partnerships with local housing developers, funding agencies, and housing entities has allowed Davina to further the growth of her clients.