A recent ULI webinar provided an overview of U.S. infrastructure spending and the details of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021. Then the panelists discussed projects in Austin, Texas, and Washington, D.C., that demonstrate how infrastructure investment supports equitable and desirable development.

A survey conducted this spring by the ULI Curtis Infrastructure Initiative found that while the Institute’s members disagree about what exactly constitutes infrastructure, there is broad agreement that infrastructure creates the framework to enable real estate development, ensure economic development and housing opportunities, and provide connections for diverse communities. Asked to cite their top priority for infrastructure investment, members most often cited the stock of affordable housing.

Beginning in the 1950s, the Interstate Highway System began to span the continent, connecting cities across the United States and driving suburban development. But in many cities, these highway projects also physically divided communities and paved over neighborhoods. A ULI webinar hosted by the Curtis Infrastructure Initiative in September gave an update on the status of such projects in three cities—Atlanta, Austin, and St. Paul.

Improved connectivity leads to better cities and more profitable buildings, and data can play a crucial role in analyzing that connectivity and planning to maximize it, said a keynote speaker at the ULI Asia Pacific Leadership Convivium in Singapore.

In many American downtown areas and commercial centers, improvement districts are used as tools for revitalization, placemaking, and economic development. They improve the street presence and provide important marketing services for local businesses. But what if they could tackle larger infrastructure needs? Better yet, what if commercial real estate owners and investors could attract billions of public dollars and, in the process, create a new way to build roads, interchanges, and other important projects?

The United States has fallen behind other nations in crafting public/private partnerships to leverage resources for critically needed infrastructure improvements. A global panel of experts explores how that might be changed.

Transportation demand management policies that require access to travel options as part of the development process can be highly effective in the creation of communities that provide mixed-use, higher-density development without increasing traffic congestion, according to a new ULI publication.

China’s largest insurer is backing the nation’s ambitious smart city program with investment in technology, panelists said during the ULI Asia Pacific Leadership Convivium, held in Shenzhen, China.

A ULI Advisory Services panel toured South Sacramento, California, in September, meeting with more than 75 city and county officials, local business leaders, residents, and other stakeholders. The four sponsors—Sacramento Regional Transit, Sacramento Council of Governments, Sacramento Municipal Utility District, and Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District—asked the ULI advisory panel to outline a plan for kick-starting a retrofit of the two transit-adjacent neighborhoods into transit-oriented neighborhoods. Their goals were to promote equitable, healthy, and inclusive community development that fosters job and income growth, housing options, and healthy neighborhood amenities with more convenient access to transit, retail, and services.

The ever-increasing traffic congestion in South Florida, a region that includes Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties, has not gone unnoticed by either local officials or private companies, both of which have been working on solutions to traffic woes for years. At ULI South Florida/Caribbean’s ULI Miami Investor Symposium in late October, two speakers—one from government and another from the private sector—laid out their plans to alleviate some of the congestion.