This Fall, I served as special media correspondent for the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat‘s awards ceremony in Chicago. Among the many architects, engineers and other tall building types I interviewed was Douglas Durst, head of The Durst Organization, a family-run real estate empire established in New York City 100 years ago. He was there to accept the Lynn S. Beedle Lifetime Achievement Award.

We talked about developers’ role in promoting affordable housing, neighborhood development and sustainability.

“When people build these high-income, expensive buildings, they should be forced to contribute also to low-income construction, which will bring down the cost of land and make it possible to do rental housing,” said Durst, noting that developers of condominiums are currently exempt from New York’s “80/20” housing program.

Watch the full video interview embedded from YouTube on this page, or on CTBUH’s website, where you can find the rest of the videos in the series.