Recently, a social media post I made on X about urban design hit a nerve. It was pretty straightforward, or so I thought.
“So can we talk about Central Park West? There’s no good reason it’s a two-way street for cars. Instead, make it a protected two-way bikeway, a northbound-only avenue for cars with a dedicated bus lane. It’s time for a major redesign that promotes efficiency, wellness, and safety.”
It didn’t occur to me that a loosely summarized proposal to transform a street in Manhattan from a two-way avenue into a one-way thoroughfare with a bike and bus lane would cause such a heated reaction. The transportation alternatives crowd hailed my post for its forward-thinking approach to urban planning. Those who favored the car and had a disdain for cyclists, however, had a much different reaction.
As I found out the hard way, in urban environments, bike lanes can be very polarizing. Roadway space is limited, and there is a constant push-pull between how much of that precious pavement should be allocated toward cars, mass transit and bicycles.
Why agents should understand the principles of community planning and urban design
But social media trolls aside, it’s important for real estate agents to be familiar with planning and urban design in their communities. You aren’t just selling a home — you are selling a neighborhood. How people get around in that neighborhood is directly tied to quality of life and lifestyle choices.
If we, as real estate professionals, are in the business of selling the built environment, then we cannot afford to ignore how that environment is built in the first place. Urban design isn’t an abstract academic topic. It’s the foundation of property value.
Think about the questions you hear from buyers every day. They don’t start with floor-area ratios, setback rules or zoning regulations. They ask: How long will it take me to get to work? Can I walk to a coffee shop? Is there a park nearby? What’s happening in this neighborhood?
These are questions about design. A well-planned streetscape with mixed-use zoning, safe sidewalks, reliable transit and green space creates value. A poorly planned streetscape — clogged with traffic, hostile to pedestrians and disconnected from transit — erodes it.
Walkability, transit access and neighborhood vibrancy now show up in pricing models. A “walk score” is no longer just a marketing gimmick. It’s a real valuation factor. Buyers will pay premiums for neighborhoods designed for people, not just cars.
Urban planning is something every real estate agent should care about. It’s not separate from our work. It is our work.
You cannot sell a home in isolation. You sell the street it’s on, the block it belongs to, the neighborhood it anchors. Every conversation with a client is, in some way, a conversation about design.
When you understand planning, you’re more credible with buyers, more valuable to developers, and more persuasive in your advocacy. You don’t need to be a professor or a policy wonk (trust me, most of us are overrated anyway), but you do need to know that when the city proposes a rezoning, or when transit budgets are slashed, it directly affects your business.
Elevate the real estate profession with a broader vision
Too often, our industry’s trade groups have focused narrowly on commissions and compensation. Those are important. But if we want to elevate our profession, we must broaden our scope. We need to speak up about how our cities and communities are designed. Those decisions shape the very product we sell.
Long before I co-founded the American Real Estate Association, I taught urban planning courses as an adjunct professor at John Jay College in New York City. We delved into 20th-century planning, which inevitably led to Robert Moses, the master builder who, despite never holding elected office, wielded unimaginable power over the city’s future. He built scores of highways, bridges, parks, beaches and other public works on a scale never seen before.
But for all that he built, the costs were staggering. By the time he left power after 44 years, the population of the city had cratered, finances were in ruins, and New York itself careened toward bankruptcy. Communities were razed, neighborhoods split in two, and trust in government eroded.
Standing against him was Jane Jacobs, who argued for a different vision of the city: Neighborhoods designed for people, not cars. Sidewalks alive with activity, the “eyes on the street” that kept blocks safe. She helped stop the Lower Manhattan Expressway and forever changed how planners think about urban life. The Moses–Jacobs battles weren’t just about roads and buildings; they were about values, priorities and power.
Today, we speak about the pitfalls of the past and the lessons learned to guide our future decisions. The stakes are higher than ever. From zoning reform to climate resiliency, multimodal transportation and new wellness initiatives like WELL Certification, agents today need to understand the community context of the homes they are selling and the clients they are representing.
The agents who can speak fluently about planning and design have a distinct advantage over those who fail to grasp these concepts. It’s not enough to know the finishes and fixtures inside four walls. The best agents can situate that home in a larger story about the neighborhood, the city and the future.
The act of buying a home is always an act of faith and trust. Clients need faith that it will be a wise investment and trust that their real estate professional is providing sound advice. At the intersection of the two comes a deeper understanding, not just of the home, but of the environment around it.
I often think back to my urban planning students, many of whom had no idea how or why certain roads and neighborhoods came to be. When they learned that all of it — the good, the bad and the ugly — sprang from a planning process, it motivated them to take action and shape their communities. Real estate agents would be wise to do the same.
Because one day, when clients look back on their purchase, they won’t just remember the square footage or the fixtures. They’ll remember the neighborhood, the lifestyle and the community around them.
And they’ll thank the agent who understood not just the house they bought but the urban fabric that made it a home.
Jason Haber is the co-founder of the American Real Estate Association and an agent at Compass.