The primary goal of SFpark—a major initiative for the city of San Francisco—is to make it easy to find a parking space. The rationale behind the initiative is a belief that drivers unable to find a space on the street will cruise around or double-park, adding to congestion.

More than 30 of the nation’s leading multifamily developers, owners, and capital providers gathered in May to discuss issues facing the industry at the 2nd annual ULI/Carolyn and Preston Butcher Forum on Multifamily Housing in Houston, Texas, with four key themes emerging.

Not long ago, it seemed as if e-commerce would make brick-and-mortar retail as obsolete as rotary telephones. Instead, catalog and web retailer L.L.Bean is leading a wave of businesses that are building physical storefronts to drive their online trade.

Designing more human-centered communities requires “moving beyond intentions of what we hope to create to finding ways to actually engage with people [in order] to get there,” said designer and architect Liz Ogbu, speaking at ULI’s Housing Opportunity Conference in Minneapolis last week.

The latest issue of Urban Landis now available for download via the app. If you have not downloaded it before, you can do so now at no charge. The cover package for this issue is titled “Crafting Authenticity: Designing retail spaces that consumers embrace.”

Increasing density must form a key tenet of urban planning policy if cities are to tackle the pressure that migration is placing on housing, employment, and the environment, leading urban economist Edward Glaeser said during a ULI panel discussion in London. Launching ULI Europe’s program of work on density and the urban environment, the Harvard University economics professor and ULI Trustee said restrictive policies on the growth of cities will be increasingly harmful.

Now in its third year, the OneSpark festival highlights entrepreneurial projects in both a juried competition and a popular vote in what is touted as the “world’s biggest crowdfunding festival.” There will be 555 official OneSpark creator projects this year.

Speakers at a concurrent session on the creative reuse of aging infrastructure added three case studies to the growing list of success stories, including Chicago’s MetraMarket, Buffalo’s Erie Canal, and Hollywood Park in Los Angeles.

Airbnb’s Brian Chesky shares the top spot in this year’s Fortune 40 under 40 with Uber CEO Travis Kalanick. Both companies have faced their share of controversy, but are influential in the built environment and the “sharing” economy, particularly as both look to expand internationally.

This past July, a company called Kisi took the grand prize at a “Hacker Challenge” for real estate–based apps sponsored by RETechNYC, an advisory firm, and ULI New York.