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From Research to Action: Turning Evidence into Better Cities with Robert Puentes · Building Better Cities

• Kate Gasparro: We have a lot more information about our cities than ever before. We can model how a transit investment might change a neighborhood. We can measure housing affordability parcel by parcel. We have decades of research on everything from property taxes to zoning and infrastructure investment. But having better information doesn't necessarily mean we're making better decisions. At a moment when trust in institutions is fraying and complex policy questions are being reduced to headlines, sound bites, and hot takes. What role should research play in shaping the future of cities? And who do we trust to help translate that research into action? Today I'm joined by Robert Cuentes, President and CEO of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, an independent research organization focused on improving quality of life through the effective use and stewardship of land. Robert has spent much of his career at the intersection of policy, research, and the built environment. Before joining Lincoln, he led the Eno Center at transportation and spent nearly two decades at the Brookings Institution. That career gives Robert a particularly interesting perspective for this moment. He has spent decades inside institutions where his job is simply not to have ideas, but to build the evidence behind them and to get that evidence into the hands of people making decisions about the future of our communities. So today we're asking what does it take to turn what we know into how we build? I'm Kate Gasparrow and this is Building Better Cities. I wanted to better understand how does an organization like the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy continue to operate as a trusted nonpartisan resource for decision makers, but also for residents of urban areas and just the the populate, ourselves, and how we receive information. And maybe we can couch this question in the what is a hot take and a soundbite mean to Lincoln when your work itself is so nuanced and these Problems and challenges are so complex themselves. ⁓ there are folks who look at think tanks and say, well, they should all be neutral, right? Not really having a perspective or an opinion on things. And I really disagree with that. I think that, you know, being neutral essentially means we're ref refusing to take a view or a stance on something. And we are not neutral. We are independent, right? Which is a big difference to me. ⁓ you know, because we have very, very strong opinions of things, ⁓ just ask anybody. ⁓ but all of those opinions are rooted in empiricism and rooted in research and rooted in working with practitioners. And so they're not coming from an ideological standpoint. They're coming from the work that we've produced, the expertise that we have here and the insights that all these experts produce, right? So it it it it really matters that that is the framework for all of this stuff. Because if we're independent, it means we're not captured by a political party, we're not captured by any kind of dogma, we're not captured by funders, right? And that's that's a really tricky world for Think Stanks. these days where so many were associated with one party or another, where you see where funding is coming from. And once you start losing that credibility, it's a it's a slippery slope and a real downward spiral. So we protect that very, very much here ⁓ at Lincoln. ⁓ but, you know, if we have opinions about things, if we know, for example, that 20 years of research shows us that ⁓ property assessment caps ⁓ you know, might have some short term gain for some folks, but actually shift the tax burden onto to other people. To renters and and new homeowners, we kind of have an obligation to say that, right? Even if that finding is politically challenging or may annoy someone on one side or another, that's what the work shows. And it's our responsibility to to get out there so we can make decisions based on that rigor and and that and that research. So that's the discipline that I think really matters. Back to your question. It's being full throated about the stuff that we know. ⁓ Being honest about what we don't, if we have questions about something, that matters. And folks should know that even us who were studying these things ad nauseum, if we don't know the answer, that that actually in and itself is a finding to me. ⁓ and then not be afraid to push on those findings when we know that it's that it's solid. That's how credibility gets built, that's how it gets maintained over years, and to me it's it's really non negotiable. I like your example of property tax caps and the sort of short-term, long-term tension that you sit in the middle of as advising decision makers, policy makers from ⁓ decades of research and the long-term view of decision making and policy implementation that an elected official might not appreciate as much on their short-term political cycle. What other types of tensions do you have to walk the tightrope on? being a nonpartisan, independent institution that's data driven and the politics environment that we're in today as you're influencing or informing ⁓ decision makers and policymakers. I think part of it is this is a translation function, right? I mean, the work can be wonky. I still don't say that with any level hustle think the wonky part is good. ⁓ but these are complex issues, these are complex topics. And, you know, even though people don't necessarily wake up every day thinking about land policy, you know, they're thinking about the things that are around land policy. They're thinking about that data center that's being proposed down the street, or they're, you know, worried about their awful commute that's gotten longer and more unpredictable, or, you know, they're worried about ⁓ getting priced out of the neighborhood where they where they grew up, right? So they're they're thinking about the things that are related to land policy, but maybe not land policy in the abstract. And that's fine. ⁓ but when they talk to their elected officials, when they talk to policymakers, it that's the those that's the language that they're using. So ⁓ you know, it's it's making sure that when they do that and they do have those conversations with folks, that the elected officials, the decision makers, the practitioners are using the work that helps inform those conversations. A lot of that is from places like like Lincoln, because these are truly front page issues, right? I mean, Rand policy in itself is not, you know It's not a backwater issue. Data centers, housing, housing affordability, ⁓ the property tax, all these things are really front page issues to the extent that we have front pages and news anymore. But you get the point. I mean, these are front and center on the policy ⁓ discourse. They're highly relevant. And even though they may not be called land policy, it's our job to show where those connections are made and show how relevant and timely all this stuff is. Right, because the world of land policy touches so almost I wanna say everything within the built environment. You you already noted housing, infrastructure, climate resilience, municipal finance, economic opportunity, affordability. And so even though individuals might not think about this as land policy, that's the umbrella under which you've been working for decades. And so I'm just like looking down at my notes, you know, what are decision makers looking for these days that has evolved over the decades that you have been working in this field and what sets apart 2026 from previous years in terms of number one, what topics we're most interested in, and number two, how we're talking about those topics. I think it is important to make sure that we're kind of getting out of our own way and we're we're looking at the things that that the work is connected to in order to contextualize it for folks because If we are just, for example, transportation people talking to transportation people, we get transportation things. And that's fine. But if we connect those things to the the larger ⁓ concerns that folks might have around public health, around climate, around social inequality, you've you've exponentially increased the audience for the work. ⁓ and that's where I think what policymakers are looking for, because they're not just looking for you know in small interventions, right? But they're looking for you know, comprehensive approaches. How because then the real world, all these things are into housing, transportation, land use. These things are all fundamentally connected. And I think most people actually understand that. It's only in the stovepipe world of of government bureaucracies where we keep these things apart and we keep them separate. And so transportation people get transportation outcomes, house people get housing outcomes. And it takes the heroic effort from somebody to kind of link these things up. So what I'd like to see to your point about well, what what do we need now? Is we need to make sure that those things are more routine, right? That it is it's more ⁓ the rule than the exception that we're thinking about these things in a holistic manner because they're all fundamentally connected and everybody knows they're connected. It's just the government world where we keep them apart. And in your introductory note, when you took on this role of CEO and president of the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy, you talked about Lincoln serving as a convener and connector and breaking down these silos. So as you're looking at Lincoln's ability to produce research, how are you pushing the organization to not just create plans that sit on shelves, but really getting them to be implementable by the agencies, decision makers that influence our day to day lives? I'm very influenced by by my former boss, ⁓ Cecilia Rouse over the president of Brook Agency, ⁓ who said that research is not the finish line. It's an input to the ultimate impact that you want to have, or some variation of that. But I steal from that all the time. Because it really matters. Here's an organization, here's the president of an organization focused on research, saying that research isn't enough. And that's really powerful because we know that it's the the ultimate impact we want to have isn't just the research, right? It sounds obvious to folks, but you know, we fall on the trap a lot a lot of times with that, that we've produced the paper or we've done the containing, or we've, you know, written the book or whatever the case is. But if we really want to have impact, we gotta think about what it is we're trying to achieve with this work, and then what is the role of research in in getting us there. And that means, you know, investing just as much in the research as we do in training programs and technical assistance, in making sure we have direct relationships with mayors and planning directors and and folks like that, just as much as the research itself. So, for example, we bring together big city planning directors every year here at Lincoln. You've done it for a bunch of years. And it's one of the best things that we do because it gives them the ability to share ideas and ⁓ more stories. best practices among themselves, right? It's not just proceeding research, processing and executing, right? The world doesn't work that way. They need to know, how did you get around that crazy council member that you had? Or how did you handle this thing with the state budget or whatever the case is? So those kind of closed door practitioner to practitioner conversations, informed by everything being the expertise we have here at Lincoln, is really how you start to move the ball forward. ⁓ it's there's just an insatiable demand for that kind of connection. ⁓ Maybe we can talk a little bit about other types of land policy issues in which you've seen the strongest connection between research to implementation to research to implementation and this iterative cycle of learnings that we get from that relationship when research is as close as it can be to implementation. and maybe you're in the throes of it right now with data centers, but maybe there's another topic that's better to sort of explain. the effectiveness of using research should drive these decisions and improve upon decisions based off of future research. I'm trying not to be impregnable just because it's it's on my mind today, but for anyone listening, I would recite to to Joan Youngman's ⁓ work. ⁓ she's a Lincoln expert on the property tax. ⁓ she actually wrote a book called a good tax, which is about the Brattney tax. ⁓ which, you know, again, kind of a a wonky issue. Municipal finance in and of itself is right, has its own policy orientation. ⁓ but it's front and center and you know for for people across the country for policymakers. It's on the ballot in a whole bunch of states this November, probably gonna be ballot in a bunch of states, you know, next year. But it's a great example of where we've got years and years and years of really credible, really, really rigorous work that has that that demonstrates that the the the property tax is a good tax, as Jillen says, ⁓ because it ⁓ it really focuses on immovable assets. And in a world where we have major, major competition internationally for highly mobile capital, it's a really efficient way to to provide ⁓ resources for public services that we need. Joe and her team talk about at Nancy. It's very interesting and very compelling work. But now here it is a question, right, in front of voters ⁓ in November. Here it's a question in front of policymakers. You're in Massachusetts, right? It's a it's a it's a question in front of policymakers. So again, it's really our responsibility to make sure that what we have done over these years, adding up this work, doing the best research on it, giving the best insights, that that work informs these major policy conversations that are going on ⁓ around the country. Not just here in this November and not just a post mortem after it's over with ⁓ hand wringings and ⁓ it should have been like this. That doesn't help anybody. You really want to make sure that the work we're doing is relevant, that we're getting into the hands of people that need it. And it informs real decisions that are happening. The property tax and the work that our land and fiscal team is doing ⁓ is at the top of that list. Well, let's talk a little bit about property tax, as you called it the good tax. You know, it's stable, it's hard to avoid Joan calls too. Yeah, Joan calls it too. ⁓ it's hard for homeowners, also residents, to think about this property tax as it's gonna flow down to rents as a good tax when it's on the ballot during this time that everybody is talking about affordability. So how do we ⁓ continue to make sure that the work that's being done to research and advocate for good policy around a good tax or even increasing costs in the face of affordability remains connected to how voters are feeling and help us make l better long term decisions instead of being caught in a period of austerity to achieve affordability for everyone and make it seem like researchers are not ⁓ sort of sitting apart from the realistic experience that people are living on a day to day basis. Yeah, I know it's a it's a great question. And I I'd say that I mean the good thing about the property tax is that it's it's very visible right it's a very visible tax. And that keeps local governments countable, as Stewart Hurtin would say. ⁓ Because because it's so visible. And there's a real clear connection between the pro the the the tax that's being levied and the public services and the costs of those public services. So, you know, in in a lot of ways it it it it both benefits and suffers from that visibility because when it's very visible, it gets a lot of attention, right? As opposed to like a a payroll with withholding, which is something that's on your check stub and then gets taken out before you have to do anything, ⁓ which is more of a hidden tax versus the property tax. So it the visibility kind of forces it. ⁓ to the front burner of the policy conversations. But to your point, you don't win an argument, right, by telling someone that their burden isn't real, right? And you don't win an argument by saying, Racks, actually a very efficient tax and it should look like right, that's not going to work, I think, broadly. ⁓ you know very likely it is a burden for folks, right? And dismissing it out of hand and kind of waving it away gets to exactly what you were saying, right? It it that shows that you're out of touch, kind of undermines the credibility of the work because even though you may be correct, if it's not meeting people where they are, but it's not really developing ⁓ solutions for policymakers, then then what have we really done here? So I think it's important to distinguish the the the diagnosis with with the prescription in a lot of cases. ⁓ and you know the economic case for the property tax that it's that it's stable, that it's it's hard to hard to evade, ⁓ and that it's it's tied to very visible local benefit. It's really about the tax as a as a category, right? ⁓ But it doesn't mean that every state does it well. In fact, again, referencing Joan and her team, there's a lot of things that we can do to improve the the tax and improve the way that it's administered. ⁓ we've got to make sure that the that the assessments are are accurate so that people living in the same house next door, right, have similar similar ⁓ tax burdens. We need to make sure that we're doing tail and relief for taxpayers who really need it and not subsidizing folks who don't. ⁓ we need to make sure that we're avoiding property tax caps like they did in California with Prop thirteen, right? Those memories are still and the reality of that is still very real for people. So the honest answer is ⁓ the tax itself is solid. Distancing people's ⁓ you know, concerns with it in the affordability context is not the right thing to do, but there's lots of stuff that we can do to improve the way the tax is levied and administered today. As you are working with such Great rigor to ensure that everything is independent, fact-based, evidence-based. What is sort of your note to listeners now, but also to decision makers that you work with about how they go through the information facts on a daily basis to ensure that the information they're consuming that's influencing how they vote, how they put forth legislation, is backed by sound evidence? What can we be doing to increase our? research literacy so that we are making better decisions for the communities that we're in. Yeah, it it's it's amaz 'cause we we're living in a world now where where the amount of data is is is i i immense, right? Mm-hmm. But but all of that data is no good if it just enables us to make bad decisions faster. Right. So we've we've spent decades, right, especially in planning in ⁓ in urban fields, building extraordinary tools and GIS and parson level data and models and I can tell you exactly what's gonna happen if you put a transit investment in here, what's gonna happen either three, three blocks away, right? All the sophisticated stuff. And I see this actually firsthand here every day at Lincoln. We have a center on geospatial solutions, which is producing just incredibly sophisticated analysis all across the the the policy landscape. You can layer ownership data and environmental data and zoning and demographics and all these different things to inform work that's happening on the ground for everybody as much they so The the ⁓ the the data, the information, those insights is is off the charts in in its rigor and its sophistication. The the challenge is that we know that decisions still get made as if it was nineteen eighty seven, right? Where it's happening in a in a in a bag room with maybe five people who show up for a ⁓ for a public meeting, ⁓ and the schedule is probably organized by the two year political cycle as opposed to, you know, what really matters. And so, you know The the challenge is really making sure that that gap which exists isn't it I don't think it's really a data gap, right? I think it's more of a scale gap because the evidence clearly shows that all of these things we're talking about, housing and transportation, radius, all of these things really do manifest themselves on the on the regional level. Yet we're making decisions at this really hyperlocal scale, ⁓ parcel by parcel, jurisdiction by jurisdiction. ⁓ you know, on a planning commission is making decisions. in their community and they're not really thinking about what's happening, you know, two or three communities away. ⁓ that planning commission can get the best data in the world and they're still going to make decisions ⁓ based on kind of short term and and and the local perspective. So ⁓ you know, I saw this, I live I served on my planning commission in Northern Virginia for years and years and years. And I saw this every single day. It's very, very difficult for them to think about the scale that they need to think about ⁓ you know, for these for these big issues. So I think the real question isn't just how do we get more data and more information in front of decision makers. It's how do we redesign the institutions, right? So that we are ⁓ we're using regional evidence ⁓ and making decisions on things that are actually going to make a difference in housing markets, transportation markets and water, all these things that are regional in scale. So, you know, that's that's a lot harder than building a data set, but it's it's the real problem and something we really need to address. ⁓ It seems that you're carrying a lot of burden of past decades of research and decision making that has been informed, ⁓ not by research and sort of navigating this new world. in and you said it quite candidly in one of your pieces that land policy has often been used as a tool of exclusion. And we can see that in how communities have been redlined and disinvested in, and worth living with the impacts and legacy of that today. And I don't know to what extent during those times there was bad research that was informing exclusive policies or policies that led to exclusion. So as you're thinking through the research agenda and methodologies that are being used today, how do you ensure that your findings aren't leading to additional policies of exclusion? Because this is such complex work where sometimes it's difficult to project out what a zoning policy will do 20 years down the road. We have some information to help inform that, but not all of the information. So how do you ensure that inclusivity equity remains a key component of the work that you do? Because you said you're independent, but you're not necessarily neutral. And you probably have a a strong value around what that means for the work that you oversee. 100%. And ⁓ again, we do have strong perspectives on things and I think that we generally understand that it's been some of the land use practices in this country over the past bunch of generations that have caused and exacerbated a lot of the inequities that exist today. For this readings of work that that showed that. So, you know, I think but going forward, we need to learn from those those lessons for sure. But we really can't also then kind of stop at the at the average, right? We there's so much analyses about what a certain policy is going to deliver. And we've got all kinds of metrics. One GDP or ROI, whatever you whatever you're looking at, that might show that something might be okay. But unless we're very intentional and try and realize who is benefiting and who is not benefiting, who's bearing the burden, and we really ⁓ dig into that with intentionality and and and and perspective, we're gonna we're gonna lose that that element of of ⁓ of these big decisions. So, you know, we We just need to make sure that we are not waving things away. we but we have to make sure that as we're thinking about equitable outcomes, it is front and center in what we're doing and not just basic large aggregate kind of decisions. Mm-hmm. It's interesting because a lot of your interface is with ⁓ practitioners and policymakers, but there's also different industries that hold their own legacy of structure and policy that also are influencing how these decisions are implemented over time. I'm just thinking about financial institutions, the insurance market. To what extent do does the work that Lincoln does or is currently implementing, working on, impact or try to impact these other private markets that have a strong relationship to land policy? Indeed. I mean, and this is where you I think you probably need to spend ⁓ That's really what of the focus of our of our work again, as opposed to having a general public, because the ecosystems are forward and are complicated and they are multi-tendered and it may be ⁓ audiences in different industries that are not part of our normal day to day interactions, right? So ⁓ but that's also we're not going to be able to get there by just producing the work as we have done before and then hoping that the right people who really should be looking at this somehow find. Right, we've gotta be clear about that. And that means understanding what impact we're trying to have with the work before we send it out. Right. If we're trying to get to somewhere, we need to map out what's the role of research on this, what's the role in in building a network, what's the role in reaching different stakeholders, and have all that factored into what a a plan looks like so that when we get to the end, we're not saying, Boy, this is really great stuff. I just wish more people had seen it, or I wish the right people had seen it, or I wish different industries had seen it. It's gotta happen at the beginning. We've got to bake it in and you just gotta drive that through all the way through these through these projects. It usually doesn't end with just a report anyway, right? These are part of larger initiatives. ⁓ but that's gonna be part of what deal is making sure that the audience for the work is understood right, Kalsa. Mm-hmm. If there are other institutions that are producing information, facts, whether true or not, to help influence policymakers and decision makers in our communities. And also in these ⁓ institutions outside of our communities, like we talked about the financial markets, the insurance markets. If you could talk directly to ⁓ entities that are disseminating information, what would you want to convey to them at this point in time? Convey information to the Yeah, like they're the ones who are translating your report findings to the masses. They are the pipeline that we see. on social media or on news that's taking what we, you know, the work that you're doing in the research realm, and then is a pipeline to the masses. And it seems like all of the complexity and nuance that you're putting together is being soundbited for dissemination and you don't have control over that. So what is something that you would want to convey or you know sort of help influence in that integral middle pipeline of information dissemination so that we get better information to voters, better information to our decision makers, and the practitioners that influence both of those. I mean part of this is making sure that we are working with ⁓ different communities so that they can talk about our work in their own link, right? There's lots of different ways. ⁓ and anybody gets caught up in this, right? If you're as what I said before, if you're housing able to work with hands and people are going to talk about out housing things, right? And that can get pretty wonky, right? And so, you know, when we but if we're if we're talking about housing, housing affordability, that's a big national conversation with all kinds of different folks who are weighing in. We wanna make sure that they are weighing in then with the right ⁓ research and findings, which is stuff that we generate. So you gotta meet ⁓ kind of where they are. And so we've been working with with ⁓ with with different experts and and different communities so that they can talk about our work in their own in their own language, what's gonna work, what's gonna resonate with their own with their own audiences. It's hard to do ⁓ because again, we don't want to sacrifice accuracy and rigor for cow bites and hot takes, right? And that's something that I think a lot of think tanks have been wrestling with for a number of years now as the you know the dissemin dissemination methods have moved from bailing people reports to the US Postal Service, right, to to TikTok videos and that whole that whole evolution. So ⁓ so Yeah, we don't wanna be ignorant to to how things are received today, but we also don't want to do anything that would jeopardize the quality of our work, ⁓ you know, to meet that ⁓ to meet those new mediums. But then we gotta figure out the one that had to be play in that. What does make sense? We have a a forum where we bring journalists together every year, we have done this over the last couple of years, ⁓ and talking about these issues and and hearing from them and having a real engaged conversation, ⁓ Because they're relaying this to their own beats and their own work on the ground. ⁓ and we're trying to help them figure out here's how you can form all of those conversations through the lens of land policy. ⁓ that's been very effective. You call this a pivotal moment for land policy, not just for communities in the United States, but across the world. And if we were having this conversation 10 years from now, what would you hope has changed about the way that cities and decision makers make decisions? And what role do you hope Lincoln had played? played in getting us there. Right. I do hope that that decisions about about land, about housing and infrastructure do take a a long view, that they're regional in in nature, and that they're integrated as default and not some as some act of of uncanny heroism. So, you know, I guess that that means ⁓ a larger ⁓ transformation rather than kind of a single policy, policy fix. And and Blink is role in that, ⁓ you know, I would hope, is not just the place that wrote that really, really cool report that everybody downloaded and everybody cites and everybody knows about. But in addition to that is the place ⁓ that really helped build the muscle memory for city halls and state capitals, ⁓ planning directors to make those those better decisions. And that they're the place that trained generations of practitioners to do the kind of integrated thinking and decision making, not as a one-off, ⁓ but really how the world works and meets meets the way that things get done now. That's that's the kind of legacy I think that would outlast any kind of policy intervention or any kind of great idea ⁓ individually, but is there truly a way that we can change change the world? And I say that without without ⁓ any sense of humility. I think we really can do that ⁓ if we stick to what we're what we're what we're best at. Robert ended our conversation with an idea I keep coming back to. Building muscle memory. Because building better cities isn't just about having better research. It's about building the capacity to use it, to understand trade-offs, think beyond silos, and turn what we know into better decisions. If you enjoyed this conversation, please share it with a friend or colleague and subscribe to Building Better Cities wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps more people find the show and these conversations. Thanks for listening, and until next time, let's keep building better cities together.