Urban Land magazine began in July 1941, as a typewritten “news bulletin” to ULI members “that will come to you from time to time to keep you informed of items which, we believe, will be of interest to you in connection with the Urban Land Institute program.”
In the decades since, that news bulletin has evolved into a coffee-table-worthy magazine, alongside a website that continues to inform ULI’s tens of thousands of members and associates of “items” of interest. It has explored land use from many angles: health of central cities; the relationship between cities and their suburbs; government and private sector roles; community building; housing affordability; traffic; and shifting trends in retail, leisure, design, and other areas.
As the magazine’s editor wrote in 1983: “December’s cover story on a golf course redevelopment has classic Urban Land appeal. A declining golf club is given new life, a municipality sees a traditional land use preserved, and new, centrally located (and, by necessity, expensive) housing is added to the general community. It is a combination that is hard to fault.”
Urban Land has also explored external forces that have affected the real estate industry through boom-and-bust cycles. Articles have examined the rise of technology, shifts in societal attitudes, and the challenges of operating in a world grappling with energy use and climate change.
In hindsight, some coverage seems prescient, such as discussions of suburban community planning or the challenges of ever-worsening traffic. And other times, it seems like science fiction—like the article in July 1956 about a future self-contained house with its own atomic generator. “Homes would no longer be tied to the economic limits of sewer and gas mains, electric cables or the length of the fuel oil hose.
Since the beginning, Urban Land has been “a practitioner’s magazine,” as Editor Libby Howland wrote in January 1992. “Through it all . . . the magazine has kept the same focus. Its editorial mission can be stated as follows: to bring practical research and development expertise to bear on the standards and conduct of land use planning and real estate development.”
1940s: WWII and Recovery
The third issue of Urban Land appeared January 12, 1942, a month after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. Its nameplate bore a slogan: “To Obtain Post-War Replanning and Rebuilding of Cities.”
What did that phrase mean? “Post-war rebuilding of cities has been brought into sharper focus since December 7th,” that bulletin’s first item read. “The publications of planning organizations, editorials in the general press, and the discussions of public officers, businessmen and industrialists indicate that in time of war we shall be preparing for peace. Urban rehabilitation looms large in the plans being contemplated for the readjustment.”
New York Times ad in the October 1942 issue of the BULLETIN reads: This time when Johnny comes marching home, it’s going to be different. We’re gonna make work for him... building! Building new homes and apartments to replace out-of-date, overcrowded dwellings. Building hospitals, new schools, new community centers, new office buildings, new stores, new factories.
A more mundane concern also arose. The Institute’s annual meeting, previously scheduled for a resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virgina, was shifted to Chicago. “The quartering of Axis diplomats” forced the change, the bulletin explained. After the declarations of war, the U.S. government sent hundreds of Japanese, German, and Italian diplomats from Washington to remote hotels, including the one ULI had booked. The diplomats were detained there for more than six months.
Through the war years, when paper was in short supply, the bulletin’s issues remained no more than four pages long. But by 1943, issues were typeset, not typewritten. They had pictures and some longer articles, rather than just bullet item–style bits. Articles reported legislation at the federal, state, and local levels, and discussed various housing plans.
The sharpest focus remained on what would happen after the war. Mainland America had not been attacked, but ULI members appeared to agree that its cities were troubled before the war and were still in need of improvement. With the January 1944 issue, The Bulletin of the Urban Land Institute became Urban Land, with the motto “News and trends in city development.”
As the war ended in summer 1945, the June issue led with an article that presciently started, “This country may begin in the next two or three years the greatest home-building program ever known. The ideal, beyond supplying the accumulated needs caused by wartime suspension of building, is eventually to provide decent housing for all.”
Indeed, the years after the war were about building. Participation in the Community Builders Council, previously just 24 members, expanded dramatically “to all those responsibly engaged in land development,” according to a May 1947 article. In 1948, ULI published its Community Builders Handbook.
One common Urban Land topic was the nature of the post-war housing crunch. An October 1947 article argued that there wasn’t really a shortage—it was simply that people had spread out, demanding better suburban housing instead of cramped city spaces.
Those years brought real estate innovations that now seem commonplace. A January 1947 article listed cul-de-sacs among the “elaborate and unorthodox” elements of modern suburban planning. A May 1948 article celebrated the backyard as a modern outdoor living room: “The front porch . . . is now as out of date as kerosene lamps.”
1950s: Suburbs and Cities
In 1951, Seward Mott, the longtime executive director of ULI and editor of Urban Land, stepped down from his posts. In his farewell magazine piece, he wrote, “When I became Director, it seemed to me that here was a nucleus of the very type of citizen who could make city planning work, and, that with their advice and support, an organization could be built up which would attract men of similar type from all parts of this country. During the last seven years, this hope has been realized, and there now is hardly a major city in this country that lacks an interested and active Institute member . . . . The Institute membership has grown to approximately 1,200, our finances are in sound shape, and the Institute is recognized not only in this country but throughout the world as a leading authority on matters affecting urban growth, both in the central city and the suburban fringe.”
In Vol III, No. 4 ,1944, of Urban Land, Seward Mott is announced as the newly appointed director of ULI, which meant he was also the editor of Urban Land. He came to ULI from the Federal Housing Administration, where he spent nearly a decade establishing standards for neighborhood and land development.
ULI
Then and now, Urban Land has reflected changes in the industry and world it covers. Few shifts are starker than the way the magazine has reported on the legacy of developer J.C. Nichols. Nichols, one of the six founders of ULI in 1936, was a pillar of the organization for years. After his death in 1950, almost the entire March Urban Land issue was devoted to remembrances of him. Editor Mott wrote, “To the Institute his priceless asset was the wealth of his forty years’ experience in the planning and developing of this country’s greatest residential community, the Country Club District of Kansas City.”
Country Club was, by any measure, a pioneering real estate project. But it was developed with racial covenants that kept out Blacks, Jews, and others. In 2020, 70 years after Nichols’ death, Urban Land reported that ULI was renaming its annual $100,000 J.C. Nichols Prize as the ULI Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development. The magazine annually conducts extensive interviews with laureates, including Dr. Stan Bullard, Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo, architect Jeanne Gang, and sustainable and innovative developer Jonathan Rose. The prize spotlights individuals and organizations that have been on the cutting edge, using innovative processes, techniques, strategies, and insights to encourage and achieve the highest quality in development practices and policies at the global, national, or local level. The prize rewards accomplishments that honor diversity of land use, design, mobility, lifestyle, population, culture, and race and that reflect an awareness of changing technologies and their impact on a sustainable future for communities.››
Vol 13, Number Six, June 1954, Conveyor Belts for Pedestrians: In Jersey City, N.J., commuters recently started using what is believed to be the first moving sidewalk designed as a permanent facility for the large-scale movement of pedestrian traffic. Successful demonstration of the feasibility of this installation is expected to stimulate many other applications now under study to facilitate and encourage pedestrian traffic in downtown business districts, large shopping centers, airports, and parking lots—to name a few actual projects. One particularly bold proposal is the substitute belt conveyors for the shuttle subway trains now operating under 42nd Street, New York City, between Times Square and Grand Central Station.
Through the 1950s, the magazine focused on the experiences of real estate practitioners as the post-war boom continued. By the beginning of 1953, supply and demand for housing had begun to even out. “We are moving toward a condition that might be called normal,” an editorial declared in January, while also pointing out that housing starts seemed “scheduled for another million-unit mark.” That number would mark an active year, even in the 21st century, when the U.S. population is almost double what it was then.
December 1951. The first post-war shopping mall in the United States, Northgate “Center” (later “Station”) in Seattle “is a regional shopping center designed to include complete comparison buying. It is one of the few really large centers thus far in operation. The center opened early in 1950. The features of this center were studied by the Community Buildings’ Council as part of its field inspection trip during the time of its Seattle meeting. Mr. James B. Douglas, president of the Northgate Company, owners and operators of the center, acted as host during the inspections.”
Issues in the burgeoning suburbs included shopping center design, parking, and, of course, traffic. A new type of business development was also emerging: suburban office buildings. A multipage case study in the July/August 1954 issue examined the phenomenon from the perspective of the New York suburbs, which increasingly attracted corporations seeking space for administrative and clerical functions on “large campus-like sites.”
“There has been much discussion as to how extensive such a movement of office buildings from city to suburbs may become; city realty interests feeling [that] such moves are unwise and uneconomic, suburban realty interests expressing themselves to the opposite effect,” the author wrote. “Regardless of the relative merits of these points of view, we do know that such moves have occurred and are occurring.”
Suburbs presented growth opportunities, but cities and their rejuvenation remained a concern. Titles of urban rescue proposals and programs shifted over time, but the same questions came up repeatedly. What’s the proper role of government? How does industry respond? What works, what doesn’t?
A May 1955 editorial headlined “Slum Clearance—Plus” cataloged the evolution: “The nation is well launched on its third attempt to use Federal funds as a lever with which to clear away the slum areas of American cities. The first device, of course, was public housing. This was simply a proposal to substitute new habitations for old.
“Then came urban redevelopment, which adopted the neighborhood approach and enlisted the aid of private investors in financing new structures. Now we have urban renewal, which is community-wide in its scope, although performance will necessarily be on a project-by-project basis. Urban renewal is also broader in another sense, in that it adds slum prevention and structural rehabilitation to the older device of slum clearance.”
A December 1956 issue looked at coordination of those urban renewal programs with another huge federal program that defined the 1950s: highway construction. Author James W. Follin, a past commissioner of the then-Federal Urban Renewal Administration, said the $20 billion-plus that would be spent on highway construction in the coming years could most economically and effectively be managed by cooperation between highway builders and urban renewal authorities. Those authorities had broad powers to condemn land for clearance and rebuilding, and to relocate displaced people and businesses.
Opinions of the link between highway construction and slum clearance were mixed, even at the height of those programs. For instance, the December 1956 article speaks approvingly of how renewal and highway plans were coordinated in the proposed District of Columbia Inner Loop Highway. That freeway was never completed, largely because of adamant local opposition.
Other cities have since looked anew at those urban highways, and Urban Land has covered the reevaluations. An October 2022 article cites examples of cities that have mitigated the damaging effects of the highways. Those mitigations include a park built over the Woodall Rodgers Freeway in Dallas and the Big Dig burial of Boston’s Central Artery. Other cities contemplating such projects include Austin and St. Paul.
1960s: Prosperity and Tumult
June 1962: This is an “advance view” of the Midtown Plaza mall before its public opening. In the center of the photo is the 28-foot high “Clock of the Nations” with scenes from 12 nations. From this completely covered and air-conditioned mall area, shoppers will have access to more than 1,000,000 square feet of retail space, including the McCurdy store and the B. Forman store, co-sponsors of the entire project.
Photo Courtesy of Victor Gruen Associates, Designers of Midtown Plaza
Urban Land reported on new trend after new trend during the generally prosperous, often tumultuous 1960s. There were new approaches to building housing, retail, and entire communities. The magazine’s monthly issues also grew thicker and, by decade’s end, more colorful. In many months, the publication focused on a single sector, with two or three different articles on that sector, or an exploration of a single, singular project.
Much of what’s common now was new then. The June 1962 issue looked at Rochester’s Midtown Plaza, the first U.S. indoor shopping mall, which opened during the preceding April. That was a notable milestone in the importance of suburban retail development. From 1958 to 1963, retail sales outside cities rose 89 percent, with no sign of slowing, and opened new opportunities for developers, as several articles reported over the years.
Here’s a diagram of the Town Center of Columbia, Maryland being developed by James Rouse who is quoted: “Is unmanaged, sprawling, oppressive growth really to be the future face of our country? Or will we provide new communities sensitively designed to meet the real needs of people; shaped in scale with people—communities in which people feel important and uplifted—where there is some hope of matching growth in human personality, character and creativity.”
Housing innovations also took hold. In May 1962, the article “Condominiums: A New Look in Co-ops,” pointed out, “Condominium is a new term in the housing field, and not many of us are familiar with the basic principles.” In September 1963, an article discussed new Federal Housing Administration guidelines that affected “town houses . . . once known as the row house.” With those guidelines in mind, several 1964 articles explored the developing role of homeowners associations, largely revolving around the publication late that year of a ULI technical bulletin regarding HOAs.
The 1960s also brought the birth of entire new towns, a recurrent Urban Land theme. In December 1963, James Rouse wrote an article announcing that his company had purchased the land for its pathbreaking new town, Columbia, Maryland. In April 1965, the magazine reported, “We know that more than 160 ventures of 1,000 acres or more are now being planned or actively constructed.” A month later, Urban Land profiled Kingswood, Ohio, and Joppatowne, Maryland. Over the years, Urban Land would come back to these and other new towns to gauge their success.
Suburban growth was enabled in large part by highways and cars. In mid-1963, Urban Land noted that U.S. car ownership had more than doubled over the previous 15 years, raising worries about parking, transportation, and the future of cities. Concerns about dying or resurgent cities continue to get attention. In November 1963, Hunter Moss, then chairman of ULI’s Central City Council, wrote that U.S. downtowns are congested, noisy, and dirty—“tired”—but said a “back to town movement” was emerging.
Some who think of cities in the 1960s will think largely of urban unrest, especially riots in 1965, 1967, and 1968. But Urban Land during this era tends to deal with such troubles in passing mentions. In November 1965, for instance, Robert T. Nahas, the Institute’s president, wrote “Civil Disobedience and Private Property Rights,” an editorial decrying “revolutionary activists” who employ tactics aimed at private property.
However, in January 1969, without getting into details, editor Robert E. Boley wrote, “The basic urban problems of today and tomorrow may be essentially the same basic problems of yesterday. What has changed is the magnitude, complexity, and urgency of these problems. What must change, and change quickly and drastically, is our ability to cope successfully with these problems.” And in March 1969, Urban Land printed an article summarizing the 1968 recommendations of the National Commission on Urban Problems. The panel, also known as the Douglas Commission, studied land planning, zoning, and building codes with a goal set earlier by President Lyndon B. Johnson: to find “knowledge that would be useful in dealing with slums, urban growth, sprawl and blight, and to insure decent and durable housing.”
November 1968: In the story “The Population Crisis Is Here,” the editor’s note begins: “At 11 a.m. on November 20th, the population of the United States will pass the 200 million mark, according to the U.S. Bureau of the Census. This is an interesting statistic but what are its implications, not only as a national event, but in concert with the phenomenon of global growth?” The note goes on to explain that the “crisis” is “dramatically” outlined by Roy O. Greep.
The February 1968 cover of Urban Land reads: “How Can Corporate Dollars Help Rebuild America’s Cities?” The topic was covered extensively during that year’s ULI Fall meeting in Washington, DC, which brought together a group of leading corporate executives and urban development experts. An editorial by Edward J. Logue, Maxwell professor of government at Boston University, explores ideas that may sound familiar to today’s reader: “Shopping centers, job-training centers, transportation systems, which take people out of the ghetto.”
Eight months later, the October 1968 issue of Urban Land is devoted to understanding the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968. And in March 1969, Urban Land printed an article summarizing the 1968 recommendations of the National Commission on Urban Problems. The panel, also known as the Douglas Commission, studied land planning, zoning, and building codes with a goal set earlier by President Lyndon B. Johnson: to find “knowledge that would be useful in dealing with slums, urban growth, sprawl and blight, and to insure decent and durable housing.”
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Sometimes the magazine marked the activities of the growing Institute. The June 1961 issue noted the 25th anniversary of ULI Panel Studies. Five years later, the October 1966 issue took a more in-depth look back at those studies over the decades. In January 1966, Urban Land itself marked its 25th anniversary.
Coverage often reflected the composition and attitudes of the Institute’s membership, which was very white and very male. For instance, a May 1967 piece started off, “Many of our members … will recall the pretty, dark-haired Miss who fielded questions so well at the ULI information booth.” It went on to congratulate this “par excellence gal Friday” on her “new career”—that is, her upcoming marriage.
In summer 1967, Urban Land published what was then its largest issue ever—32 pages. Perhaps in a reflection of the Institute’s prosperity then, the magazine in 1968 began to print in color for the first time—but each issue added just one color of ink, which was still quite costly at the time.
