There is something almost rhythmic about Rick Holliday’s decision to develop a new home neighborhood in West Oakland—30 years after he studied the potential for housing in the area while an undergrad in City Planning at Cal. As a student looking at the existing neighborhood, he felt that West Oakland’s central location would be the key to its redevelopment. Now as a builder and developer, he has brought hundreds of rentals, lofts and row homes—a quarter of them designated as affordable housing to market. Bringing such solid names as Bridge Housing and Pulte Homes to the neighborhood has expanded the architectural diversity of the offerings—and has helped create a sales environment that belies the gloomy housing news.

In today’s podcast, Rick tells The Real Story about his foray into hands-on market research that included two weeks of hanging around a local barber shop: “in some of the older neighborhoods, the barber shop is like a community center.” Rick talks about the great perspective he gained, and how understanding how the existing neighborhood gave him some valuable insights into the planning of the new, so that it fit in, right from the start.