SLO LIFE Magazine AprMay 2021

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| Q&A Just the Numbers A couple of years ago, Cal Poly professor PRATISH PATEL drove out to Oceano for the first time. That’s when he asked the question: “How come this area’s not faring as well as the rest of the county?” We had an opportunity to talk with him in depth about the eyeglazing subjects of research methodology and empirical evidence the other day. Here’s some of what he had to say… So, Pratish, before we get started can you please tell us where you’re from? Really? You want to know about that? Okay. I was born in a very small town in India, and we immigrated to the US in ‘96. We came here for a better life. So, the funny story there is, when I was born in ‘81 my parents applied for a visa, a green card. Our visa was approved in ‘95. It took fourteen years. That was the waitlist. When we came here, we went to Georgia. It was my mom, my dad, and my sister, and me. I went to Georgia Tech where I got my chemical engineering degree. And then to Cal to get my PhD in finance. My first job was with the Real Estate program at Cal Poly. Real estate, huh? That’s right. I’m very interested in urban economics, which looks into how cities form, and the economics of regulation and the dynamics between cities. I think that’s the coolest part of real estate. Most people, when they think of real estate, they think about housing and flipping houses or whatever. But I think that the guts of it is that a house resides within a city and, of course, different cities are different. Every city has its own character, and I love that. That’s why I love San Luis Obispo. I truly consider it my home. And I want to see it improve. What would you do to solve the housing problem here? In San Luis Obispo, we have this idea that we want to only create single family homes, and I think that idea is probably not quite right for everyone. I think we need to start thinking about building a bit taller, because if we do that, we can retain a lot of our open space. And it’s actually a more sustainable thing to do. I know people don’t like to hear that because it doesn’t go with the architectural vision here. But if there is the demand to grow, and if you really want to solve housing affordability issues, then we just need to go taller. So, to preserve the hiking trails and open space, you go up rather than out. Let’s talk about your work in Oceano. Okay, so a couple of years ago, one of my students who was participating in a lowincome housing project said, “Professor Patel, why don’t you come with us to Oceano? I just want you to see what is happening out there.” I went along and was surprised to learn that it was not faring as well as the rest of the county. I wanted to find out why that was, so I started looking into the demographics and the history and the economy. It didn’t make sense to me that it was lagging so far behind its much wealthier neighbors. Then, I came across the study done by SMG that claimed that vehicular access [to the dunes] adds $240 million in economic impact annually. That’s when I said to myself, “These number just don’t add up. Something’s wrong here.” What was wrong? They made some Herculean assumptions, which were compounded by significant math mistakes. And, State Parks, which had commissioned the study, claimed to not have the raw data. That seemed funny to me. I mean, how could you pay someone to do a study and not have access to the data? It actually took the Sierra Club doing a bunch of Freedom of Information Act requests to finally obtain the data. After that, I wrote up a counterargument to the study before doing some research of my own, which concluded that there was very little, if any, economic impact coming from vehicular access. And to be frank with you, I was surprised by that finding, because I did expect to find some. But I didn’t find any. And that seemed to really upset a lot of people. I found that quite odd because it’s not my opinion. It’s just the numbers. SLO LIFE 26 | SLO LIFE MAGAZINE | APR/MAY 2021
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