Ten venues provide places for community members to gather, play, compete, learn, and enhance wellness.

When events mega-company LiveNation approached Philadelphia design firm EwingCole about transforming the former Ajax Metal Company into a 3,000-person music venue and entertainment complex, it was a daunting proposition, said speakers at a recent ULI Philadelphia event which toured the site. Modeled off the iconic 1960s venue in San Francisco, Live Nation now operates six Fillmore-branded venues across the United States, with a seventh on the way in New Orleans.

Business improvement districts and other stakeholders are leveraging live music performances and other activities as a draw—both to prospective commercial tenants and to residents and visitors. Participants at a recent ULI Washington panel discussed both best practices and complicating factors when adding live-performance spaces to a neighborhood.

Thoughtful placemaking is fundamental to the success of any economically and socially viable city. Detroit’s downtown parks are both public assets and important attractions throughout each of Michigan’s four seasons.

PBS will broadcast a new documentary, 10 Parks That Changed America, on April 12th. Produced by WTTW in Chicago, the program identifies the 10 most influential urban parks in the country, from the era of America’s early settlers to the present day, ranging from the Squares of Savannah, Georgia, to the High Line of New York City.

Two urban parks—one in Oklahoma City, the other in Foshan, China—have been selected as winners of this year’s Urban Land Institute Urban Open Space Award.

Ideally, mixed-use projects achieve some kind of symbiosis among their elements, creating a whole that is more than the sum of the parts. All completed in the past five years, the following ten projects represent innovative takes on combining product types.