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The property surrounding the San Diego–Tijuana border crossing offers many opportunities, said ULI members speaking at a panel discussion in October. But the San Ysidro crossing—the busiest border crossing in the world—remains a daunting, congested funnel for binational business. A recent ULI technical advisory panel looked at solutions to make better use of the surrounding land.

Armed with a healthy sense of skepticism, ULI Greenprint members are evaluating a range of tech-based approaches to augment savings already achieved through Greenprint’s shared-data benchmarking.

Weaving data, virtual and augmented reality, and analytical tools into all stages of the design and development process pays off with better buildings—and better returns.

The real estate industry traditionally has valued gut instinct and experience. But the ability to collect, analyze, and visualize vast amounts of information could be the new competitive advantage.

The Case for Open Space, a new report from the ULI Center for Sustainability and Economic Performance, makes the business case for real estate investments in parks and open spaces. Case studies highlighted in the report were drawn from 30 open-space projects across the United States supported by the private sector, with five compelling projects that incorporate open space.

Developers and city leaders of Cleveland are considering how to redevelop a 400-acre (162 ha) neighborhood to the southeast of the downtown corridor. Once known as the “Forgotten Triangle,” the area is now part of the Cleveland Opportunity Corridor, with plans to reconnect the neighborhood to the University Circle area by 2021 via a multimodal boulevard.

ULI’s real estate education programs tailored to students, public officials, and industry entrepreneurs are being reinforced with a gift of more than $200,000 to the ULI Foundation from ULI Trustee and former ULI Global Chief Executive Officer Patrick L. Phillips. Phillips’s contribution provides $150,000 for UrbanPlan, ULI’s popular urban development curriculum offered to high school and university students as well as public officials to raise awareness about the impact of development on the long-term future of communities, with the remainder of Phillips’s gift supporting ULI’s Real Estate Entrepreneur Program.

A new attitude toward growth—and a focus on waterfronts—woke up a sleepy Florida city.

A new report from ULI’s Greenprint Center for Building Performance shows that the commercial real estate industry is making significant progress in reducing energy consumption, carbon emissions, water use, and waste disposal. Volume 9 of the Greenprint Performance Report™, which tracks, benchmarks, and analyzes the performance of nearly 8,000 properties globally owned by Greenprint’s members, demonstrates a 3.3 percent reduction in energy consumption, a 3.4 percent reduction in carbon emissions, and a 2.9 percent reduction in water use between 2016 and 2017.

A new online Public Infrastructure Decision Tree provides guidance to state and local government officials.

There is no “secret sauce” vital to creating an innovation community, but certain ingredients are necessary, ULI members were told during the 2018 ULI Fall Meeting in Boston.

From the increasing urbanization of emerging nations in Africa to the graying of the U.S. population, demographic shifts will have a major impact upon demand for various types of development over the next few decades, according to a demographic analyst who spoke at the ULI Fall Meeting in Boston.

How can a park protect a city from extreme flooding? Houston’s 160-acre (65 ha) Buffalo Bayou Park demonstrated resilience during Hurricane Harvey, surviving the storm with minimal damage and providing critical green infrastructure to the city during the peak event. In this video, learn about the park’s design and development firsthand from members of ULI’s Houston district council.

In the closing address at the 2018 ULI Fall Meeting in Boston, social psychologist and best-selling author Amy Cuddy urged audience members to alter their physical posture, speak more slowly, and use expansive breathing to feel more powerful and open to communicating with others.

Though e-commerce has not signed the death warrant for brick-and-mortar retail, the retail landscape varies vastly by sector and market—even by block in urban settings—and landlords must be more flexible than ever, said panelists speaking at the 2018 ULI Fall Meeting.

The commercial real estate sector is poised to undergo a radical technological transformation in which it will be as quick and easy to buy or sell a home as it is to order a new iPhone, in which blockchain and digital tokens will allow commercial real estate assets to be split into tiny shares that can be easily traded, and in which construction companies will deploy autonomous bulldozers to grade sites and make up for a shortage of skilled labor. Those were just some of the transformative innovations described by venture capitalist Brad Greiwe in a session on technological change at the 2018 ULI Fall Meeting in Boston.

The presence of a talented workforce and economic diversity are the main characteristics of this year’s top cities in the latest version of the ULI/PwC report.

ULI Global Chief Executive Officer W. Edward Walter provided highlights of the Institute’s Global Strategic Plan, which will help strengthen member engagement and impact, during remarks at the 2018 Fall Meeting’s closing general session.

During a discussion about public/private partnerships (PPPs or P3s) at the 2018 ULI Fall Meeting in Boston, panelists explored what types of infrastructure projects are likely to be best suited for the innovative tool in which public agencies can facilitate desired projects while shifting much of the development, financing, operating responsibility, and risk to private developers.

Best-selling author, entrepreneur, and New York University marketing professor Scott Galloway issued an impassioned call for the government breakup of Facebook, Amazon, Google, and Apple, telling attendees at the 2018 ULI Fall Meeting that the four giants of the digital-age economy have grown too large and powerful.

While the scenario is fictitious, cities all over the world deal with these sorts of problems on a daily basis. Such scenarios form the basis of UrbanPlan, a high-priority ULI initiative that seeks to broaden the discourse and encourage creative thinking among high school and university students and public officials in tackling some of the most intransigent problems facing urban planners. The fundamentals of UrbanPlan, one of the programs ULI offers members as a volunteer opportunity, were presented to members during a Fall Meeting session.

Addressing the lack of affordable housing for the middle class is one of the biggest opportunities—and sources of frustration—for homebuilders, according to a panel of industry executives speaking during the 2018 ULI Fall Meeting in Boston.

Crowdfunding has captured the imagination—and money—of investors throughout the United States. While it is used for everything from charitable campaigns to launching startup businesses or paying legal fees, commercial real estate may be the largest online investment opportunity for crowdfunding to date, according to a panel at the 2018 ULI Fall Meeting in Boston.

Technological innovations ranging from sophisticated sensors to algorithms that sift through mountains of operational data to extract new insights are taking hold across the commercial real estate sector. But it is crucial to avoid becoming distracted by the allure of innovation for its own sake, and concentrate on how to assimilate advances in a way that generates value for companies and their clients, according to panelists at the 2018 ULI Fall Meeting in Boston.

Over the last decade, the remaking of urban districts around the United States has often led to significant neighborhood upheaval. But developers, nonprofit organizations, and public agencies are placing increasing emphasis on building equitable outcomes into development and renewal, and officials from two organizations at the forefront of that effort shared their experiences at the 2018 ULI Fall Meeting in Boston.

In an emerging “gig” economy, with each individual developing his or own brand, does leadership still matter? At the ULI Fall Meeting in Boston, Ralph Boyd, ULI senior resident leadership fellow, moderated a panel of industry notables discussing the critical importance of leadership.

Speaking at the ULI Fall Meeting, panelists said that even as experimentation with blockchain continues “fiercely,” the business world is now taking a tougher look at blockchain applications and asking why so few proofs of concept have made it to the commercial phase. That scrutiny ultimately could lead to better, more useful applications.

At the 2018 Fall Meeting in Boston, Mayor Martin Walsh called on developers and other real estate professionals to help the city and state move housing and infrastructure initiatives forward.

Internationally acclaimed artist and urban planner Theaster Gates was awarded the prize during the opening general session of the 2018 ULI Fall Meeting.

Real estate companies are in a uniquely powerful position to promote diversity and inclusiveness, both within their own workforces and in the communities they develop, according to panelists at ULI’s 2018 Fall Meeting in Boston.