Perhaps it is a sign of uncertain times when top-level economists start talking about feelings. The current U.S. economy is “not quite as bad as it feels,” said JLL Americas managing director Ben Breslau, during a 2016 ULI Fall Meeting panel discussion. “Not that there’s no risk, but it’s not quite as bad as it feels.”

In the search for safe havens, German cities will be Europe’s most preferred real estate investment and development destinations in 2017, according to Emerging Trends in Real Estate ^® Europe 2017. Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, and Munich occupy four of the top five spots for 2017 investment and development prospects in the annual forecast published jointly by ULI and PwC. The report is based on the opinions of almost 800 real estate professionals in Europe, including investors, developers, lenders, agents, and consultants.

Regenerative developments are breathing new life and economic growth into mature cities with transformative initiatives that are imparting a new competitiveness and bright futures to urban areas, panelists said at the 2016 ULI Fall Meeting in Dallas. “We aren’t just building buildings. We’re building cities,” said David Pitchford, chief executive officer of UrbanGrowth NSW, a government agency of the Australian state of New South Wales.

The numbers in the latest ULI Real Estate Consensus Forecastmay show flat to lower growth in the coming years, but there is plenty of both risk and opportunity in the market, as panelists said during a 2016 ULI Fall Meeting session on the report. “Economic growth in the United States is still happening,” said Jeanette Rice, head of investment research in the Americas for CBRE.

South Quarter IV, a housing development in Minneapolis, has been selected by the ULI Terwilliger Center for Housing as the winner of the 2016 Jack Kemp Excellence in Affordable and Workforce Housing Award.

The city of Chicago’s Troubled Building Initiative was selected by the ULI Terwilliger Center for Housing as the winner of the 2016 Robert C. Larson Housing Policy Leadership Award, an annual recognition of the innovative ways the public sector is addressing the country’s affordable housing crisis.

The real estate sector should prepare for a rapidly escalating onslaught of online attacks by hackers employed by organized crime.

A new “Housing Developers Toolkit” released by the White House outlines a range of zoning and local policy changes that can spur development of affordable housing. Among them are the elimination of off-street parking requirements, which the paper states “generally impose an undue burden on housing development, particularly for transit-oriented or affordable housing.”

Real estate investment trusts posted a second consecutive month of negative total returns, causing investor concern about interest rates and underlying valuations. Plus, interest rate survey data from Trepp.

More than 55 years after the REIT Act title was signed into law as part of the Cigar Excise Tax Extension of 1960, India’s first real estate investment trust (REIT) is slated for an initial public offering, though it is unlikely to list until early 2017. Plus, interest rate survey data from Trepp.