Nate Silver, founder of the FiveThirtyEight website, is scheduled to deliver the closing keynote address at ULI’s Spring Meeting, which is being held in Philadelphia April 19–21. A statistician who analyzes both baseball and politics, Silver first gained national attention during the 2008 presidential election, when he correctly predicted the results of the primaries and the presidential winner in 49 states. In the 2012 presidential election, he called 50 of 50 states.
As announced earlier, F. William McNabb III, chairman and chief executive officer of Vanguard, one of the world’s largest investment firms, will speak during the opening general session. McNabb is expected to share thoughts on leadership and the economic outlook. He will be interviewed by William J. Ferguson, chairman and chief executive officer of Ferguson Partners and cochairman and co–chief executive officer of the FPL Advisory Group. Ferguson also is the author of the ULI publication Keepers of the Castle: Real Estate Executives on Leadership and Management.
Another high-profile event at the meeting will be “A New National Housing Policy,” a discussion featuring former U.S. Senator Scott Brown (R-Massachusetts); Daryl Carter, chairman and chief executive officer of Avanath Capital Management; Renee Glover, founder and managing member of the Catalyst Group; and J. Ronald Terwilliger, founder of the ULI Terwilliger Center for Housing and chairman of Terwilliger Pappas Multifamily Partners.
More than 20 real estate sessions are planned on an array of topics such as the long-term industry forecast, successful public/private partnerships, reclaiming waterfronts, the latest in retail development, trends in transit-oriented development, anchor institutions as economic development catalysts, innovative housing design, and the future of suburbs.