ULI Celebrates Black History Month

Monday marked the beginning of the 28-day-long celebration of Black History Month in the Americas. Established in 1926 by Carter G. Woodson as Negro History Week, the week of recognition was expanded and renamed Black History Month in the 1970s. Black History Month is officially celebrated during February in the United States and Canada and during October in Ireland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. In the spirit of this month, we would like to highlight what we are doing to continue to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in both ULI as an organization and for the broader real estate industry as a whole.

Monday marked the beginning of the 28-day-long celebration of Black History Month in the Americas. Established in 1926 by Carter G. Woodson as Negro History Week, the week of recognition was expanded and renamed Black History Month in the 1970s. Today, Black History Month is officially celebrated during February in the United States and Canada; and during October in Ireland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.

In honor of Black History Month, in the coming weeks, we will highlight the many achievements of ULI’s African American members and projects with notable impact on the black community. In addition, in the spirit of this month, we would like to highlight what we have done to continue to promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for ULI and the Real Estate Industry. The activities highlighted below are only a snapshot of the work occurring in the institute to foster change.

  • Our District Councils are deploying new DEI focused programming like the 21-Day Equitable Development Challenge. Hosted by ULI Memphis and RegionSmart in 2020, the goal of the program is to spend time in personal reflection, and in groups to identify real actions we can take in our companies, and as a community to address inequities in the real estate industry.
  • ULI’s Real Estate Diversity Initiative (REDI) was first launched 12 years ago by ULI Colorado. Since its inception, REDI, has become a model within the Institute for fostering education and career opportunities for people of color and women. The program continues to grow nationally as it is adopted by more District Councils. Read more about REDI here.

Finally, last summer, ULI acknowledged that the history of urban planning and development in the United States has included racist practices and caused both economic and social harm to our Black communities for generations. We continue to believe that current and future industry actions can—and must—remedy mistakes, thereby creating access and fostering unity. The best way to effect changes within the industry is for ULI to lead by example. To that end, we will continue to create programs that facilitate dialogue about issues of race and equity, and lead to tangible change.

Given the scale of systemic racism in our work, we recognize a great task lies ahead. However, we remain firmly committed to working across the real estate industry to ensure our communities are equitable by design.

To learn more about land use and racism:

  • Segregated by Design. This powerful 18-minute video examines the forgotten history of how our federal, state and local governments unconstitutionally segregated every major metropolitan area in America through law and policy.

Additional resources available at Real Estate and Social Equity | ULI Americas

For additional information about ULI Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, contact [email protected].

Sonia Huntley is the Urban Land Institute’s senior vice president, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
W. Edward “Ed” Walter, a widely renowned real estate industry leader and most recently the Steers Chair in Real Estate at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, is ULI’s global chief executive officer.
Gwyneth Jones Cote is ULI’s President for the Americas. She serves on the board of Project REAP and leads other ULI DEI intiatives. Cote, who served as Bell Partners chief operating officer from 2013 until the end of 2017, was responsible for a team of more than 1,400 employees and approximately 60,000 multifamily units. Prior to her service at Bell Partners, she consulted for several years to private real estate companies. Cote began her real estate career in 1989, joining the mid-Atlantic division of Trammell Crow Residential after receiving her Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.
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