At the ULI UK Annual Conference, land use experts discussed changing consumer expectations, with experiences serving as a key status symbol, augmented by the digitization of those experiences. With billions of people across the world now able to purchase the status symbols of old—cars and handbags, for example—experiences and other less tangible elements are the new status symbols and need to be sharable on social networks.
Flexibility—from the macro level of economies, education, and governmental impact, to the micro level of managing teams and where to put staircases in buildings—was an overarching theme throughout the ULI U.K. Annual Conference 2017. Land-use experts discussed the need to provide flexibility and adaptability in infrastructure, buildings, working practices, and management systems in a world that is changing quickly.
Asia’s largest investors are becoming increasingly selective when it comes to acquisitions in Europe and the United States and are looking more to their home markets. That was the view of one of Asia’s leading investment managers and other experts speaking at the ULI U.K. Annual Conference 2017.
At the ULI Europe 2017 conference in Paris, Sarah Harper, professor of gerontology and director of the Oxford University Institute of Population Ageing, shared a series of startling facts about demographics as they relate to the built environment. By 2050, just 5 percent of the world’s working-age population will live in western Europe, whereas Asia and Africa will see huge increases in their share of that demographic. Sub-Saharan Africa in particular could become perhaps the most important region for construction and related industries.
The prospects for real estate investment in Europe remain positive in spite of widespread geopolitical uncertainty, according to a panel of senior industry figures convened at the 2017 ULI Europe conference in Paris. Participants argued that in spite of heightened political volatility across the globe, the environment for real estate investment in Europe, and indeed globally, remains extremely positive. The political climate is not necessarily influencing real estate as much as one might think, given the intensity of the rhetoric.
The debate around managing migration is often centered on the economic benefits that can occur from migration versus the pressure on resources that results, and real estate is very much at the center of this. Attendees of the 2017 ULI Europe Conference heard from a panel of experts from different fields about the challenges and opportunities that arise from migration, how these manifest themselves in some very different ways, and how the built environment can help mitigate these issues.
Given that urbanization is putting ever-greater pressure on the finite resources of Europe’s capital cities, the need to create more affordable housing was a major part of the discussion with three public officials speaking at the recent ULI Europe Conference.
When Griffin Real Estate took possession of a dilapidated food market hall in the center of Warsaw in 2012, it created a development that dovetailed the site’s history with the current hunger for food-led destinations in city centers.
Transparency in the global real estate sector has improved markedly, according to a recent report produced by JLL and LaSalle Investment Management, with the ten most transparent countries taking 75 percent of global investment volumes.
