2024

Writing five-part series on “What Happened to Downtown Retail?”, with first installment appearing in Urban Land (May)

2022

Celebrated 20th-year anniversary of MJB Consulting

2021

Contributed opinion piece to Dow Jones & Co.’s MarketWatch publication

2020

Began co-teaching the International Economic Development Council’s (IEDC) Neighborhood Development Strategies course

2018

Gave first lecture for UC Berkeley’s Master of Real Estate Development + Design program

Contributed chapter on retail to Suburban Remix: Creating the Next Generation of Urban Places (Island Press)

Launched the “Retail Contrarian” email newsletter

2017

Gave Master Talk at IDA’s annual conference in Winnipeg on “The Homogenization of Authenticity”

2016

Spoke at the World Towns Leadership Summit in Edinburgh

2013

Worked for first intercontinental client, Mosaic Partnership, in the London borough of Wandsworth

Presented to an assemblage of U.K. Business Improvement Districts and local authorities in the East Midlands

Started a two-year stint at Vice Chair of IDA’s Executive Committee

2010

Opened second location of MJB Consulting, in the San Francisco Bay Area

2009

Commenced first of two three-year terms on IDA’s Board of Directors

2005

Presented at first of what would be eighteen (18) consecutive annual conferences of the International Downtown Association (IDA)

2004

Advised first international client, a developer in Vancouver-Squamish (BC)

2003

Began teaching/guest-lecturing at the graduate schools of Penn and CUNY/Baruch

2002

Took a position in leasing/acquisitions for a New York City-based national retail developer

Experienced first International Council of Shopping Centers’ (ICSC) Las Vegas convention

Wrote a series of articles for the Urban Land Institute’s (ULI) Urban Land magazine, on the subject of “Urban Edge Retail”

Interviewed by The Financial Times about my Urban Land piece on “Working-Class Malls”

Launched MJB Consulting upon receiving multiple calls from would-be clients

2000

Began specializing at the planning consultancy in market analysis and commercial revitalization, with a focus on retail

1999

Secured a job at a prominent New York City-based planning consultancy – without realizing that most practitioners actually have a graduate degree in the subject

1998

Discovered urban planning and embarked on a mission to learn all I could on my own

1996

Began working as a policy analyst on economic development issues for a New York City elected official

1980

Debuted initial journalistic foray, the Irvington Daily, with a readership of two (mom and dad)

1973

Born in Manhattan’s Morningside Heights neighborhood