Issues and Trends
In October 2025, ULI convened the Water Wise Development Coalition to discuss the latest updates on water and land use policy and their implications for both the real estate industry and the country as a whole. The meeting brought together land use experts, real estate professionals, and public sector decision makers. Guest speakers included Kelly Connolly Kern, director of public affairs at the Alliance for Water Efficiency, and Lindsay Rogers, policy manager for municipal conservation at Western Resource Advocates.
Last week, during ULI Washington’s Fourth Annual Future Forum, held at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C., a panel titled “Housing from All Angles” brought together three experts to examine the intersection of homelessness, development, and housing finance.
ULI’s Homeless to Housed (H2H) initiative, launched after publication of the report Homeless to Housed: The ULI Perspective in 2022, highlights the numerous real estate-driven solutions that have been undertaken in recent years to tackle the problems of affordable housing and homelessness in cities across the country.
Data center demand is exploding as AI and always‑on digital life fuel the sector, which is far outpacing the broader commercial real estate market. Yet a lack of power-adjacent land and increasingly complex approval processes are now slowing projects and threatening to put a ceiling on that growth.
The ULI Terwilliger Center for Housing has announced two winners for this year’s Jack Kemp Excellence in Affordable and Workforce Housing Award and three winners for the Center’s Award for Innovation in Attainable Housing. “ULI’s Terwilliger Center for Housing is excited to present the 2025 winners of the Kemp and Innovation awards,” said Aimee Witteman, Chief Impact Officer at ULI. “Each winner is showing the industry how to create more inclusive and affordable communities through housing production.”
Third edition evaluates top 30 global powerhouses report reveals world’s leading urban hubs rise in popularity post pandemic. Challenges include new economic conditions, rising costs, adaptation to hybrid work, innovation gaps, the climate imperative, and transition to social, mixed-use districts.
Guy Kawasaki—chief evangelist at Canva, former chief evangelist for Apple, and bestselling author—summed up insights gleaned from his years in tech and as host of the Remarkable People podcast, interviewing such luminaries as Margaret Atwood, Tony Fauci, Jane Goodall, and Steve Wozniak.
As congregations across North America grapple with shrinking membership and aging facilities, a new opportunity is emerging: transforming faith-owned land into affordable housing and community-serving spaces. At the 2025 ULI Fall Meeting in San Francisco, panelists in the session “Spiritual Brownfields: Declining Congregations and Opportunities for Housing on Faith-Owned Land” explored how churches and developers are partnering to bring mission-driven housing to underused sacred sites.
A panel of insiders reveals what’s true—and false—about the housing crisis and how to fix it.
Concerns about deglobalization surge, AI revolutionizes real estate, and top European cities for investment identified as London, Madrid, Paris, Berlin, and Amsterdam