Values not Incomes

Richard Baron of McCormack Baron Salazar spoke at the Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Competition Kickoff today on the WashU campus. The posters came up couple of days ago, and I'd already heard Mr. Baron speak in one of my classes last year (I think he's friends with my friend Jodie also), so I went for the heck of it.
It's really exciting to hear him speak, because he's this old guy with a funny voice (funny in a good way) that talks non-stop for an hour and a half about building housing and financing them so that it becomes a successful, mixed-income housing development in the most blighted areas of the country. He has pretty awesome jokes and anecdotes as well.
Some things he deems important are:

• forest people, not tree people (collaboration and diversity in thinking is key)
• that it's easy(ier) to start something up because everyone's excited; you have to have your finances figured out before you start so it doesn't crash right after the first year
• that people can live in the same community because they have the same values, not incomes
• building for people means you gotta be able to listen to them

I particularly like the last two. His projects are all very interesting, and the way they carry out the long-term aspect of housing developments is innovative and gutsy. It feels good to see young and old people react to his work in an energetic way; I'm Wall-E getting a boost from the Sun.

Yay!