Technological innovations are affecting nearly every facet of how societies function, but it is the corresponding evolution of human behavior—not the technology itself—that is driving how the next generation of cities around the globe is being built. That was the general feeling of a panel of large-scale developers—veritable city builders—assembled at the World Real Estate Forum by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Real Estate.

Emerging technologies will bring major changes to the real estate industry, prompting questions that people will be pondering over the coming months and years. “We’ve got to restart our thinking about what we do,” said Paul Doherty, chief executive officer and president of Memphis-based the Digit Group, a leading provider of “smart city” solutions.

When it comes to the e-commerce explosion, it’s all about “the last mile,” and almost anything is imaginable. “The last mile can be executed on foot, bicycle, hand cart, unicycle, skateboard, jetpack, Uber, Lyft—the list goes on,” said Benjamin Conwell of Cushman & Wakefield, a former director of Amazon’s North American real estate operations, speaking at the 2016 ULI Fall Meeting.

Free public wi-fi and charging stations are being deployed through outdoor public furniture and fixtures—benches, shelters, streetlight poles, trash cans, and other common features.

With 2016 under way, I am very excited and hopeful about the changes taking place at ULI this year. We are continuing to move forward in three key areas: 1) a new global governance structure;
2) a major new information technology initiative; and 3) a relocation into a new workplace in Washington, D.C.

Harnessing the power of big data and the internet, new tech capabilities allow governments to fine-tune services—and allow residents more influence.

In the coming years, it will be possible to access mountains of aggregated market data and do real-time valuations for industrial, retail, and office properties; and buildings will be traded online the way that stocks are traded now. That is the world envisioned by a panel of real estate information technology providers at ULI’s 2015 Fall Meeting in San Francisco, and they expect to see it happening in the next few years.

At last year’s Consumer Electronics Show, a unique fusion occurred: real estate, which ultimately is about presence, met phones and other devices that link people and places.

The desire of today’s creative class for connectivity, walkability and non-traditional live and work spaces is reshaping how designers, architects, and developers design homes and offices, says Christopher B. Leinberger, president of LOCUS, a real estate policy advocate for walkable and transit-oriented development.