I have been putting off writing this post for some time now, I knew it was coming about three months ago but held out hope that there was going to be some way around the way things were going, but now that I sit down to do it I wish that I had a long time ago, I have so much to say about what we did right and wrong but most of all I do not feel regret for trying, yeah there were many things that in hindsight I should have done differently but LJ Urban has been an extraordinary adventure from the start, we set out to change the world and I can only hope that there were others who were changed as much as we were along the way. But now it is over, or at least this version of it. We had a good long run, almost 7 years in total, but things are over now. To put it simply what happened is this, the market value of the property we hold fell too far below the loans we had on the properties, we were able to hang on for the past year after that happened in hopes that things would turn for the better but with no cash flow and no equity with which to borrow against LJ Urban became no more.

The plan was to take the year off so we would not keep spending money on overhead but the values kept plummeting and the banks and lenders became impatient.  Despite sleepless nights, migraines, ulcers and everything else we put into making it work, the end result is a company with no book value and no future as a property development company.

But what LJ Urban really was at the heart of the company was so much more than the property values or the LLC Documents, LJ Urban was a movement, this site has had over 400,000 visitors every years since we put it together, LJ Urban represented for so many of us a new way of thinking. We built a company that set out to do things differently not just as a marketing campaign or motto but because we believed that we were coming into a market that was broken.

We believed that the wasteful tract housing trend is dead wrong and that there is a better way, we believed in cities, we believed in the power of communities made up of millions of people all over the world who wanted to see cities made into better places to live. We fought against long commutes and construction of more and more new roads to more and more identical rows of matching houses, and do you know what? We were right, spending countless hours each week in the car just to have a big yard and 3000 square feet of home to live in is not only wasteful its sick and wrong. More than 50% of the world lives on less than 2 dollars a day and we still continue to build larger houses with more room to park our SUV’s. What’s worse is that before all this happened with the market we as a community of people who cared about the earth and the people who live in it were actually getting somewhere with convincing the Americans that they needed to be more sustainable but as soon as the recession hit it was like everyone felt that they no longer had to do the right thing, the motto became “me first” as everyone tried to grab what the could for themselves. But the truth is if we had been more conscious of the impact of the things we were doing not just on the earth but to the people that live on it on both sides of the globe, if we cared about the other expenses that came along with our lifestyle we might just have avoided this whole thing. You heard me right, we brought this on ourselves by caring more about the flashy image we presented than the foundation on which we were building our lifestyle.

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Many of you have emailed and asked what you can do to help out with the orphanage and the kids over in Africa that we are going to help and I think I have just the thing.

We are going to have a raffle and see if we can’t raise some money for these kids. Are you ready for this? Because we not only need you to buy raffle tickets but we need you to send this post around to everyone you know to see if we can’t raise some serious money for them.

What is this raffle for you ask? Well its for a 2009 Honda Metropolitan scooter of course!

It was the office scooter we purchased in February and has only 150 miles on it. Since we are moving to Ethiopia we [Read more →]

Jessie and I heard about a desperate need and want to see if you might be able to help out.

There is a man named Chala in Thailand who runs a sort of a orphanage for children who’s parents were killed in Burma.  Chala once fought with the Shan State Army to defend innocent villagers against the Burmese army that was intent on enslaving and killing them. Now he has about 40 children that he is struggling to keep alive.

Today we heard through some friends who are working on moving to Thailand to help Chala that he has gone into debt over the last few months taking care of the children and now faces imprisonment if he does not catch up on his bills.   The number is minuscule in comparison to what a great work he is doing, its only $800.   I want to ask for your help today.   We have set up a paypal account where you can help make sure these kids are not left alone again.

Thank you so much!  We may never know how much good we are able to do if we get together and make this happen for these kids.

Any and all money donated will go straight to Chala and his effort to take care of these children, all you need to do is click below to donate.

Thank you!

Levi


I sort of start talking fast when I talk about things that I am passionate about and the Good project is definitely one of those things. Here is a video we made about the Good project. We are going to have an open house on Wednesday from 11 – 3 and again Saturday from 12-4.

The big sales event day we have all been waiting for is finally going to happen on Saturday the 19th of July.  So far we have been telling people who want to buy that they have to wait for us to finish our final with the city and now that we have it all we are going to be moving forward! I can not begin to tell you how exciting this is for us…It’s a huge deal to finally be able to move people in to our Eco-Urban houses.

If you are interested in purchasing one just get a hold of me at 916-930-9400 and I will help you get all the paperwork in order to submit an offer on the 19th. We are not pre-selling the other lots, so all that will be available is the first phase and they will go quick so its up to you to be ready before hand.

Enjoy my fast talking…..

Levi

Its been a few months since I barred my soul here on the Blog. Its still very sad not having Jason around anymore, the opening day last week was especially hard. Everywhere I looked there were memories of Jason. His Dream Big, Live Small, Do Good tag line on the sign seemed to be begging me to cry right in the middle of everyone. I nearly did a few times.  I miss my brother also but the memories of him seem to stay at home where I have things of his but Jason is everywhere in the Good project, its sad.

Its kind of weird when I talk to people I never met and they hug me and look at me with sad knowing eyes. I am always a little creeped out wondering what they know that I don’t.  It wasn’t until the end of the day that I started to piece together that these people had been reading the blog and were feeling for what I have had to deal with the last few months.   Sorry If I gave any of you a strange “get away from me look” Its so easy to forget that anyone reads this.   But I’m glad you do.

I think that because of the type of blog we have here where we are a company, and real people trying to mix the two together, People are not sure if they should comment. (you should by the way..) I hear that usually 5% of the people who visit comment but that would mean we would have like 20 or 30 comments every time.   I’m not hurt or anything, I think that the fact that we are doing this is helping change the world. Ever so slowly I can hear the mood change around me, I can hear people starting to work towards making the world a better place. People changing the small things in their life one little change at a time.   I like to think that we play a role in that, I don’t know if we really do but it helps me get up in the morning and keep pushing forward for what I feel is right.

I guess what I am trying to say is, thanks for reading, we like you to.

Levi

One of the things we always wanted to do with LJ Urban was to prove that things can move in the right direction.  We have had our share of skeptics watching from the sidelines quietly (and some not so quietly) disagreeing with our vision and its nice to finally have living proof that there is a better way and the market is ready for it.   Since our sneak peak we have had people signing up on the Good interest list at a rate of 30-40 per day. My phone tells me every time someone new signs up and its going crazy,   Just in the last two hours here is how often it has gone off…   9:35  – 9:42 – 9:44 – 10:15 – 10:27 – 10:44 – 10:48 – 11:02….  Its starting drive me a little nuts, I think I need to turn off the alert.

LJ Urban is setting out to prove that we as a society are ready. We are ready to care, ready to start making choices that help the earth instead of using up all its resources, ready to stop spending hundreds of dollars a month on commuting and high energy bills, ready to start living small and doing good.  We are a generation on this earth that is faced with a opportunity to change, to begin a course towards better places and better lives.  Its not the housing or the sustainability that solves problems its the people and we are here to say that its time and we can make a difference.  That is what the Good project is all about.

My wife and I are going to be amoung the first to move into the Good project and we could not be more happy about the move.  And given the response we are getting there are about 2400 of you who agree with us that its time for a change.

Many of you have requested that we have another open house day and so this Sunday I am going to head over from 5-8 and keep the doors open so you can come and take a look. Its not another big party like last time but for those of you who missed us last week now is your chance to come see what the fuss is all about.

We are still not officially selling the homes yet but expect to start taking Pre-Sale orders in early June, be sure to sign up for the interest list to get information on when and how we are going to go about that.

Levi

Several people who did not make it out to the event asked that I post pictures on here of the house. I am not much of a Photographer so you have to put up with me here, I must add that the house proved an easy subject to shoot. Without any further ado… I give you the XS

If you get a chance grab a SN&R and look at page 19. They did a little plug about LJ Urban and our opening event for Good this Saturday.

I was out all day at the site helping tie up loose ends and preparing for this Saturday. The house is really coming together nicely. I have to stop talking about it so much and just let you see for yourself just how revolutionary it is.

The Just Plain Frustrating

I decided to write this post a few weeks ago and its been haunting me every since. I always have wanted to be more open and real here on the Blog and its some of the things I am going to write about here that have made me think its worth being real whenever you can.

Change is a good thing. I have always been a person who was OK changing things and re-arranging stuff in my life. Jessie (my super cool wife) and I have moved 9 times in the 8 years we have been married. And it’s normally for no other reason than that we got antsy and thought moving again would be fun (it’s not, by the way). But I have been learning a different kind of change lately, a change that I did not choose, but one that has ripped into every part of who I am. And although it would never be worth the cost of getting here, I have come to understand that there has been a lot of good to come out of it.

Let me start in February.

On the 27th I was heading to a meeting in Roseville when my Dad called to let me know that my older brother had passed away. I felt like a train had run me over. Everything in me seemed to stop working all at once. I turned around and started to head home but I really don’t remember anything about the trip back. My brother was 32 and it came as a total surprise to not have him around any more. The next 2 weeks were a blur of emotions. I am the youngest of 4 and my parents and two older sisters were coming apart, reeling from the shock. And as you can imagine I was too.

Now I am not writing this to go into great detail about the aftershock and what that was like but instead to talk about the frustration of a premature loss and what we can learn from life in times like this.

Jonah (my brother) was a crazy, passionate person who was fearless in every way. And I never thought that he would not be around. He was 5 years older than me and I always looked up to him and thought he was Superman.

I wish it ended there.

On the 25th of March I got another call telling me that now Jason had died. Another complete shock. Jason was only 36 and I had never though he would not make it. I knew he had a liver disorder but I always understood it to be a small issue and not fatal.

Jason was one of my best friends he was creative to an extreme I have never seen in anyone else. He never saw the world as a box, but instead as a bunch of ideas waiting to be unearthed.

I was not even through processing losing my brother yet when Jason died, and I was really unprepared to start the process all over again. In the middle of all this, LJ Urban was going through all the changes I talked about in Part 2 of this series. Thankfully we had started to get some of the issues under control at that point, but I knew that a few of them were still not yet stabilized and it all seemed to come together in this incredible peak of craziness. But you know what? You would think it would all be a horrible disaster, like the world came crashing down on you and you would not want to get back up. But my wife and I found ourselves seeing things in a different way, processing it all in a very clear, very deep way. We were able to see all this for what it was really worth and start to approach life with a new found understanding.

I heard someone say a few days ago that they used to think that people sucked and life was awesome but later found out that life sucks and people are awesome.

That is how I feel; I understand now why it matters what we do. I get that people are the reason for all of this and that we need to love each other and be honest with each other. I understand that it’s not about what we can accomplish but instead about who we can help and what “bad” we can make “good”. I now am more passionate than ever about making cities better places to live, but instead of doing it for the recognition and achievement, I now want to do it so that the people who live in them have a better quality of life.

Before Jason died he and I talked a lot about the Good Project and why we named it that. He always used to say that it was the first project out there that could actually be called that. He would talk about dreaming big and how he wanted to inspire people to do just that. He also wanted to start to get people to understand why living small was better. He hated that America uses 15 times the energy of most other countries and that our footprint was so large that we could never live our lifestyle without importing and exploiting other countries.

All the things that Jason used to say mean so much more to me now. I finally understand why doing good is not just for me but so that I can leave behind a legend and a path for others to follow. I want to see us stir up a movement of people who are not only inspired by doing good but intolerant of people and corporations who chose not to.

Losing people is hard and just plain frustrating. Hard like I never understood before in my life but when you step back and take a look at the big picture, you start to see that things really can be better here on Earth and that we really can make a difference.

I had breakfast with my dad today and he and I were talking about Chicago and how its such an awesome city. He mentioned that it all started with a fire. That fire was by no means a good thing but it was in rebuilding from that fire that a vision for a truly great city was born. It was the passion that came from people who suffered a terrible loss that inspired them to build a truly great city. We don’t choose the fires in our lives but we get to choose how we are going to react to them. I choose to dig in and dream big.

Levi

The Good

(First in a three part series)

This past week the drywall went up on our first home in “The Good Project” in West Sacramento. I was out there yesterday and it’s really starting to feel like something special. I always have a hard time getting the feel for a space without drywall on the walls and now that it’s up I can really see that our vision for small, well designed spaces was worth seeing through.

It seems like an eternity ago that we were standing on the newly purchased site dreaming about what to build. It’s a wonderful feeling to walk on the roads and stand out on the front porch and see the big oak trees we saved right in the middle of the neighborhood. I feel like its all worth it now, like we have actual proof that you really can dream big and do good at the same time.

There is something strange about finishing all this and not having Jason around to enjoy it. Jason had all these great ideas about grass roots marketing and ways to build community in a new neighborhood. It’s certainly going to be a challenge to do this without him. But we are going to try and do our best.

One of the ideas that Jason and I talked about before he passed away was to sell houses with no agent or middle man. The idea was to take out the commission from the sales price and do the selling ourselves. I think we are actually going to sell that way. Jason would have been so excited that we are able to make it happen. There is something very satisfying about taking out the middle man and selling directly to to the buyers. It just feels very… well, Eco-Urban…

Instead of having a office open with a sales person sitting there twiddling their thumbs all day wasting energy, we get to have fun events like the Scribble Fest or the Blogger Dinner we hosted last year. A bonus for us is that we get so spend more time with the Eco-Urbanists that are making a difference in Sacramento and get more ideas from everyone about our next projects. Meanwhile, we will be talking with those interested in moving in to the first Eco-Urban homes in the world. (I am sure that other homes would qualify, but Jason came up with the term Eco-Urban so I feel like we get to say that ours are the first…)

I will give tours of the homes myself to people who are interested in buying. People will be able to get something like an all-access pass tour of the project, and hear the passion right from us on what we set out to create in our Eco-Urban community. We figure that this alone will be able to save over 12,000 per house, and yeah, that goes directly to lower the price…

I always hate to hear that companies like Sprint pay an average of $400 per new customer in advertising. It’s just one of those things that I don’t want to be supporting when I buy something. So I get real excited when we are able to lower our prices and get to know the community better in the process. I, for one, think it will be a pretty good way to help a neighborhood get off to a good start. Everyone will have a first hand understanding of the years of love we have poured into building the best neighborhood in the country.

I am putting this out there partly to answer the questions we keep getting from people about how to go about buying one of our houses and also as a question: What do you think about this plan? Do you think we are going to lose buyers by not having a sales agent on site full time? Does this sound like a good way to educate people about our Eco-Urban homes? I really do want feedback.

We have built this company from the ground up on ideas we get from people reading this blog, just like you are right now. So don’t be shy, you just might become a part of shaping the urban core of Sacramento with one of your ideas!

Levi