Public/private partnerships build a mixed-use, urban-scaled community in Union City, California.

In 2003, Waterfront Toronto, a tri-government agency, undertook the transformation of 79 acres (32 ha) of provincially owned brownfields in Toronto’s downtown east end. The West Don Lands project was designed through extensive community engagement and collaboration between government and the private sector. The result was an award-winning precinct plan for a pedestrian-focused community—built around parks, with housing for people of all ages, income levels, and abilities; well served by transit, retail, and community amenities; and developed in accordance with stringent sustainability requirements.

The enormous mixed-use development on Los Angeles’s Westside is a tech and media hub. After decades of debate and false starts, Playa Vista is now home to more than 10,000 people.

U.S. suburbs are changing in cities such as Denver, where new transit lines and placemaking efforts around walkable mixed-use neighborhoods are creating communities more similar to the urban core, said speakers at a ULI Colorado event.

International developer Hines turns an old factory site into transit-oriented urban housing near the terminus of Boston’s Red Line.

At a ULI North Texas event in Dallas, panelists said that the renewed optimism among small business owners, strong consumer confidence, and a robust U.S. job market suggest that the next recession may be further away than predicted just a year ago. The Dallas-Fort Worth area is well-positioned for further gains, as 16 competed or under construction projects near DART stations are forecast to produce $2 billion in economic development.

Les Docks Village is a ground-floor rehabilitation of the Docks, a historic and emblematic structure built in 1857 on the Marseille harbor and purchased by J.P. Morgan in 2007.

The Peterson Companies’ new National Harbor complex development attracts 10 million people each year, but it is likely that few will notice all the measures Peterson has put in place for their protection, which are both well concealed and elaborate.

Congress has thrown its support behind new legislation that aims to fix some of the problems in the condo financing program of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). The Housing Opportunity through Modernization Act (H.R. 3700) will loosen some of the more stringent regulatory requirements specific to condo mortgage insurance that were introduced in the wake of the housing finance crisis.

A father/daughter development team is transforming an office park into a downtown for the city of Doral in the Miami suburbs.