Georgette Chapman Phillips

Georgette Chapman Phillips
  • David B. Ford Professor Emeritus

Contact Information

Research Interests: housing, real estate law, urban and regional planning

Overview

Education

JD, Harvard University, 1985; AB, Bryn Mawr College, 1981

Career and Recent Professional Awards; Teaching Awards

Undergraduate Division Excellence in Teaching Award, 1994; Rapaport Award for Excellence in teaching the Undergraduate Core, 1997

Academic Positions Held

Wharton: 1992-2014 (Vice Dean and Special Assistant to the Dean for Technology Enhanced Learning 2013; Vice Dean, Wharton Undergraduate Division, 2007-2013; Chairperson, Real Estate Department, 2003-2007;)  named David B. Ford Professor of Real Estate, 2003). University of Pennsylvania: 1994-2014

Other Positions

Associate, Toll, Ebby Langer & Marvin, 1988-92; Associate, Drinker Biddle & Reath, 1987-88; Associate, Willkie Farr & Gallagher, 1985-87

Professional Leadership 2005-2009

American College of Real Estate Lawyers; Editorial Board, The Practical Real Estate Lawyer; Contributing Editor, Real Estate Law Journal

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Research

  • Georgette Chapman Phillips (Work In Progress), Zombie Cities: Urban Form and Population Loss. Abstract

    Zombie is a Haitian Creole term used to denote an animated corpse that is brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. Zombie Cities, as I use the term here, are decimated urban cores that are brought back to life by mystical means such as public policy. The success of reviving and reanimating these Zombie Cities relies on the alchemy of initiatives—economic, social, legal—that create the conditions that facilitate re-animation. The legal piece of the puzzle turns on land use law and zoning codes that allow a city to reimagine itself in a form that is possibly quite different from the one currently codified in the zoning code. Land use law (and the policies that underpin such law) is deeply rooted in the concept of managing growth. At best the law treats the city as a static concept; at worst it imposes antiquated and unforgiving strictures that fail to allow organic and dynamic change. As cities lose population and increasingly contain hollow caverns of land caused by population shrinkage, local governments struggle to align the land use codes premised upon population growth with their new topographic reality.

    In this paper I will examine population losses in large American cities. I specifically focus on the largest cities because they hold an iconic position in the American urban landscape. While there are certainly many smaller urban areas that suffer from population loss, the transmogrification of cities such as St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Detroit deals a blow to our national identity. Beer. Steel. Cars. All industries that not only employ millions but also serve as a unique moniker of a city’s public face. In this examination I will first set the stage by presenting census data demonstrating trends in population loss in major American cities. This numerical evidence will be supported by a review of the literature in urban economics that examines why the population shifts occurred through the lens of move away from cities being centers of production and towards cities being centers of consumption. As the growth of U.S. cities will rely increasing on a city’s consumption profile we must juxtapose current land use law against that trend. At its core Euclidian zoning is premised upon the city as a center of production. As such traditional zoning must be re-imagined to conform to the new economic reality of a city being the center of consumption.

    The goal of this examination is to suggest that local governments should move in the direction of breaking the pattern of trying to recreate days of past glory based on their positions as centers of production. These attempts often rely on policies that reinforce economic realities that will not be coming back. City leaders must move towards visualizing their cities poised for viability in a new economic world order where cities satisfy the consumptive needs of the citizens. The leaders in what might be categorized as Zombie Cities will stand a better chance of re-animating the corpse by putting together forward-thinking plans based on re-imaging their city as a consumption center with a smaller population.

  • Georgette Chapman Phillips (2010), An Urban Slice of Apple Pie, Vol. 24, No. 1 Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy, 187. Abstract

    … Urban economists, sociologists and policy makers, however, extolled both the individual benefits of homeownership (wealth creation, forced savings) and the positive externalities (stability, crime reduction, etc.), and pushed for an increase in homeownership rates in urban neighborhoods. … The recent boom and bust of the residential housing market had grave implications for urban communities due, in large part, to the intersection of racial concentration in residential living patterns coupled with extraordinary penetration of subprime mortgages into the minority housing markets. … This is not to say that CRA banks are free from subprime lending, for some estimate that 50% of the high-risk loans bought by Fannie and Freddie were CRA loans. … It mandated that 32% of their loan portfolios must be to borrowers in central cities (or other underserved areas), and that 22% of the loans must be to very-low-income families or to borrowers living in very low-income neighborhoods. … The first pull into the waters of less-than-prime lending occurred in 1995, when HUD agreed to allow Fannie and Freddie to get affordable housing credit for buying subprime securities. … Individual homeowners have challenged subprime lenders, alleging that they were “sold an exotic high cost adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) … without consideration of their ability to pay the loan’s hidden maximum interest rate, which far exceeded the initial teaser rate and made the loan unaffordable”; that lenders targeted “financially distressed consumers with the intent of artificially inflating their earnings and without regard to whether borrowers could repay the loans”; and that lenders “knowingly and affirmatively misrepresented the most important measurement of the affordability of a mortgage product: the total amount of each monthly installment on the loan relative to the borrowers existing debt to income ratio.”

  • Georgette Chapman Phillips (2010), Black Brown Green: The Persistent Effect of Race in Home Mortgage Lending, Princeton Univ. Symposium Issue.
  • Georgette Chapman Phillips (2010), The Jumbled Alphabet Soup of the Collapsed Home Mortgage Market: ABCP, CDO, CDS, and RMBS, Vol. 18 No. 1 University of Miami Business Law Review, 143.
  • Georgette Chapman Phillips (2009), The Paradox of Commercial Real Estate Debt, 42 Cornell International Law Journal, 335.
  • Georgette Chapman Phillips (2007), Boundaries of Exclusion, 72 Missouri Law Review, 1287.
  • Georgette Chapman Phillips (2005), Dequity: Capital Structure in Securitized Real Estate Financing, Berkeley Business Law Journal, 233.
  • Georgette Chapman Phillips (2003), Impossible, Impracticable or Just Expensive? Allocation of Expense of Ancillary Risk in the CMBS Market, 36 John Marshall Law Review, 653-668.
  • Georgette Chapman Phillips (2003), Idolatry of Land, Current Legal Issues, Vol. 5, Oxford University Press.
  • Georgette Chapman Phillips and W. Vargas (2002), The Emerging Secondary Mortgage Market in Latin America, Geo. Wash. Int'l review, 257-286.

Teaching

Past Courses

  • FNCE7210 - Real Estate Investments

    This course provides an introduction to real estate with a focus on investment and financing issues. Project evaluation, financing strategies, investment decision making and capital markets are covered. No prior knowledge of the industry is required, but students are expected to rapidly acquire a working knowledge of real estate markets. Classes are conducted in a standard lecture format with discussion required. The course contains cases that help students evaluate the impact of more complex financing and capital markets tools used in real estate. Lecture with discussion required.

  • REAL7210 - Real Estate Investments

    This course provides an introduction to real estate with a focus on investment and financing issues. Project evaluation, financing strategies, investment decision making and capital markets are covered. No prior knowledge of the industry is required, but students are expected to rapidly acquire a working knowledge of real estate markets. Classes are conducted in a standard lecture format with discussion required. The course contains cases that help students evaluate the impact of more complex financing and capital markets tools used in real estate. Lecture with discussion required.

Activity

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