To be a truly effective real estate developer, architect or investor, you need a broad perspective on society, according to Malcolm Gladwell, author of “The Tipping Point,” and four other New York Times best-sellers. “As problems grow more complex, the benefits of wide-ranging training become greater,” said Gladwell.
University of Miami President Julio Frenk introduced Gladwell, calling the New Yorker writer an “insightful thought leader” who has been named one of TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People.
In his keynote talk, “The Golden Gate Bridge and Beyond: The Moral Implications of Place,” Gladwell discussed the psychological and social implications of buildings, streets and neighborhoods that can impact real estate development, design and investment.
“We think of the built environment as being inert, but I think that is a mistake,” said Gladwell. “We spend most of our lives inside buildings, and that sense of place is far more important than we realize.”
Patterns of street crimes
Gladwell began his talk by outlining criminologist David L. Weisburd’s extensive research on patterns of street crimes. In the 1970s, Weisburd spent a year walking with two-person police patrols in New York 72nd Precinct, considered one of the toughest neighborhoods in the city. “He had been taught that crime is linked to major social problems like poverty, drugs and discrimination,” Gladwell said. “In turn, criminals were considered to be like Dracula whose greed, anger, addiction or despair meant that they would go to extraordinary lengths to commit crimes.”
Based on those theories, street crimes should have occurred everywhere in the 72nd Precinct. But Weisburd made a surprising discovery: Crimes were clustered on a few relatively short street settings. Further research in Minneapolis, Boston, Tel Aviv, Israel and other cities confirmed Weisburd’s initial findings.
Gladwell said criminologists now recognize that about 3.5 percent of a city’s half blocks account for about 50 percent of crimes, a principle called the law of criminal concentration.
So, what happens when police crack down on a high-crime location? Do the criminals simply move to another spot? The answer appears to be no, because they look at their activities as a business and are just as reluctant to relocate as other types of businesses, Gladwell said.
“Criminal behaviors appear to be coupled to specific places and environments, even though these hot spots for crime are not obvious to the untrained eye,” he said. “This is an extraordinary observation that has led to the principle of coupling behaviors and locations.”
Looking at suicide locations
From criminology, Gladwell turned to suicide locations, such as San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, where roughly 1,500 people have taken their lives in the past 80 years. “No structure has more suicides than this bridge,” he added.
For many decades, the Golden Gate Bridge Authority felt that it was pointless to put up suicide prevention barriers, because despondent individuals would simply move to a different bridge. “Public comments also favored spending money on mental health care rather than preventing jumpers,” Gladwell added.
However, a study of 515 people who were thwarted from jumping off the bridge cast a different light on the issue of displacement. Looking back at the records, researchers found that only 25 of these individuals committed suicide, and the overwhelming majority never tried again.
“While your intuition might say that place doesn’t matter, in fact the principle of coupling applies here as well,” Gladwell said. “Finally, a suicide prevention net has been built for the Golden Gate Bridge.”
Implications for real estate
Gladwell said findings that both criminal activities and suicides are linked with specific places and environments has important implications for architects, developers and investors. “You are the custodians of our built environment,” he said. “You typically consider the commercial and residential uses, as well as the aesthetic, financial and practical aspects. But we have not looked carefully at the emotional and psychological implications of your projects as people navigate their own lives.”
Gladwell encouraged attendees to flip the principle of coupling from its negative connotations and think about how to make buildings and neighborhoods safer. “It’s not just deviant behavior that is coupled to place,” he said. “All manner of human interactions are linked to the places we inhabit. A beautiful, visually arresting office space will likely affect people in a different way than an ugly design.”
Gladwell encouraged both students and professionals to ask “blue sky” questions at the start of the design process, rather than after a market and financial analysis. “For instance, can we build a hospital so that people will get well faster or an apartment building that brings joy to the residents?”
Interdisciplinary education can help students break through those mental silos, Gladwell added. He cited a study of ophthalmology students in Philadelphia whose training included looking at paintings at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. When tested, the ophthalmologists who studied art had far better diagnostic skills than their peers, Gladwell said.
Looking back on the building of the Golden Gate Bridge in the 1930s, Gladwell said the architects, engineers and builders didn’t realize the implications of making a permanent change in the San Francisco Bay area landscape.
“Don’t get lost in the nuts and bolts of your professional work,” he added. “People are shaped by specific places where they live and work. So those of you who design and build places should think big about your role and how you contribute to the fabric of society.”
