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As leaders in land use, real estate, and commercial development, ULI members can counter homelessness and advance solutions that are cost-effective and rapidly deployable. Indeed, last summer, through the support of members led by Preston and Caroline Butcher, ULI launched its Homeless to Housed (H2H) program.

Experts discuss best practices for incentivizing property owners and developers to switch to all-electric buildings, ways to ensure the transition is equitable for low-income communities, challenges to the widespread implementation of building electrification, and other innovations and trends.

As creative placemaking has proliferated in the real estate industry, questions regarding its costs and benefits have often surfaced: What is the cost and what is the business case? Does it enhance the value of real estate? And what value is delivered?

With the Asia Pacific region comprising 4.3 billion people and many of the world’s biggest cities, the sheer scale of the sustainability challenge there is daunting. However, asset owners are increasingly using more sustainable designs and technologies to boost the performance of their assets.

The outgoing global chair of the ULI has urged the real estate industry to collaborate rather than compete in the battle to decarbonize and be more proactive over information and knowledge-sharing, particularly to investors who are less well-capitalized. Peter Ballon, who is stepping down as global chair in July, told delegates at the ULI Europe conference in Madrid in June: “We want everybody to figure [decarbonization] out. This is not where we want to compete.

In September 2022, ULI honored architect Jeanne Gang with the ULI Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development. Gang is the founding principal and partner of Studio Gang, an architecture and urban design practice based in Chicago, with offices in New York City, San Francisco, and Paris.

The Summer 2023 issue of Urban Land is now available for ULI members. The cover topic is “Design for Net Zero: Taking a holistic approach to sustainable development.”

Ten developments from across North America have been selected as winners of the 2023 ULI Americas Awards for Excellence. This year, 68 projects and programs from across the Americas region were submitted for the competition.

At a recent ULI webinar, industry leaders walked attendees through some common problems with achieving net zero through electrification and offered actionable tips for moving forward to carbon neutrality.

As the world’s population continues to grow, there will be a need for increased urbanization to accommodate more people. The question is how and when should urban planners decide to regenerate, when to expand and when to create new cities, for sustainable growth and development of future cities, since each approach comes with its benefits and its drawbacks.

In 2020, Mahlon “Sandy” Apgar, a ULI trustee and Julia Morgan Society member, provided an endowment to the ULI Foundation to create the ULI Apgar Thought Leader Award. The award program encourages the sharing of original research and innovative ideas related to the real estate industry. Every two years, a committee chooses a winning article published in Urban Landmagazine and written by a thought leader, awarding a $1,500 honorarium and free registration for the Institute’s Fall or Spring Meeting.

Although residential fell more in the first quarter of 2023, office remains Europe’s most scarred commercial real estate sector, according to advisory firm Green Street. Government mandates around sustainability are also tightening, and Cushman & Wakefield says 76 percent of European office space could be obsolete by 2030 unless landlords start investing now.

Top-down construction—constructing floors at ground level, then raising them to the top of the building and then successively downward—potentially offers an attractive alternative to conventional construction.

The second half of 2020 through to the following year was probably the busiest investment period in the two decades at Brookfield in the Asia Pacific region, according to the investment management firm managing partner and chief investment officer Lowell Baron. Baron spoke at a fireside chat session at the 2023 ULI Asia Pacific Summit opposite moderator Radha Dhir, JLL’s CEO and country head for India.

Sponsored content: Airbnb has been working with multifamily owners for several years to unlock hosting for renters. As part of ongoing efforts to drive value for owners and make hosting more accessible to renters, Airbnb introduced the Airbnb-friendly marketplace in November 2022.

Sponsored content: There is no question that the distinctive neighborhoods of Fort Worth, Texas, are a bedrock of culture, innovation, and economy for the city. With revitalization at the forefront of the city’s economic strategy, municipal leaders are focused on aligning the community and creating sustainable growth for all residents.

The latest additions to downtown Memphis hospitality include the Canopy by Hilton Downtown Memphis, the Hyatt Centric Beale Street Memphis, and the Caption by Hyatt Beale Street Memphis. Each new high-profile hotel development integrates and transforms Memphis’ obsolete infrastructure for the benefit of Memphis tourism and contemporary livability.

Designers have a critical role to play in addressing the issue of mental health for our veterans by educating ourselves on these best practices and implementing these strategies thoroughly on projects serving this patient population. In this manner, we are advocates for dignity-driven design for veterans returning home.

ULI Building Healthy Places brought together the sixth cohort of the ULI/Randall Lewis Health Mentorship Program at the 2023 Spring Meeting for three days of learning, network building, and exchange. Since 2017, the program has matched graduate students with ULI members working at the intersection of health and the built environment to learn about ULI and deepen their understanding of opportunities to advance health outcomes through careers in land use, planning, and real estate.

Public-sector leaders of two Southern European cities speaking at the 2023 ULI Europe Conference called on commercial property investors to help them decrease housing supply shortages.

Sid Yog, the founding partner of Xander Group, reflected on his career in discussion with ESR Hong Kong managing director Rui Hua Chang during a fireside chat at the ULI Asia Pacific Summit 2023 in Singapore.

The next era of multifamily real estate will be led by managers that have the ability to produce alpha. The 2010s were defined by a seemingly never-ending bull market. The next cycle will remind investors of the importance of partnering with managers that apply an appropriate risk-reward analysis and have the skill and experience to add value at the real estate level to generate alpha.

Providing end-users with a choice that originates from a binary view—either indoor or outdoor—is no longer enough.

The ULI Terwilliger Center for Housing has announced four finalists for this year’s Jack Kemp Excellence in Affordable and Workforce Housing Award and eight finalists for the Terwilliger Center Award for Innovation in Attainable Housing.

Limited supply of real estate assets—particularly properties which have the high environmental standards being demanded by occupiers—as well as the boost provided to rental income by inflation are positives amid persistent uncertainty in the European real estate market, according to a panel of executives during the 2023 ULI Europe Conference.

Civic leaders must pursue sustainability in all areas within their realm of responsibility with a deep, holistically structured, and unwavering commitment.

At the Europe ULI Hines Student Competition final, the team from the University of Manchester in England sized up their fellow competitors. They were impressed by the other presentations, but they felt confident that their own had a slight edge because of its core strength: its diversity.

Curating and creating great spaces is at the heart of what industry players in the built environment sector do every day. Placemaking is the “art and science” of turning the ordinary into the extraordinary.

And, according to bestselling author, entrepreneur, and futurist, Martin Ford, who delivered the closing keynote address at the ULI Asia Pacific Summit 2023, artificial intelligence, or AI, will soon “touch, impact and influence” every aspect of our daily lives.

San Francisco can create a more commercially vibrant and socially inclusive downtown that attracts a diverse range of industries and employers, advances housing attainability, and promotes stronger leadership, according to findings released by ULI.