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Armed with a determination to help provide resources and address the racial wealth gap, Latresa McLawhorn Ryan walks the talk. Now the former founding executive director and first employee at the Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative is embarking on a new venture as founder of Atlanta-based Blackbird Strategy Group. Here she shares insights on using real estate to close the racial wealth gap and advance economic security for Black and brown communities.

New urbanism’s rise has been a quiet revolution—a gradual introduction of walkability and outdoor rooms into the vocabulary of urban development. In his book Building the New Urbanism, Aaron Passell does a masterful job of explaining the growth of this approach to urban design.

A discussion at the recent ULI Europe Real Estate Forum in Dublin focused on three projects where public and private sector organizations work together to tackle significant urban regeneration projects more effectively in the United Kingdom and Belgium. While the relationship between developers and city authorities can often be antagonistic, the panelists discussed how more collaborative approaches can yield better results for both parties as well as for surrounding communities.

Peter Kageyama, author of For the Love of Cities, brought his unconventional philosophy to the 2016 ULI Fall Meeting in Dallas as part of the Institute’s Changing World Speaker Series. “Emotions are contagious; when more people say they love their cities, more people will feel it and believe it,” said Kageyama.

In writing this book, author Alexander Garvin went on a quest to discover what makes cities great. He found that the secret to urban greatness stems from management of the streets, squares, parks, and special places that make up the “public realm.” To maintain greatness, cities must not only maintain but also “continually alter their public realm to meet the changing needs of their occupants.”

A ULI Fall Meeting session explored new ways of activating social nodes in urban spaces, using experiential design to allow cities’ social infrastructure to evolve. These new “nodes” include ever-evolving urban markets, multifunctional libraries, and even bank cafés.

Thinking of doing real estate development in China? Then read what tips ULI members Bill Callaway, principal at SWA Group, a Sausalito, California–based international landscape architecture and planning firm, and Gene Schnair, managing partner in the West Coast offices of the international architecture firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, have for those who want to do business in the Middle Kingdom.

As schools let out for the summer, student housing real estate investment trusts (REITs) are already looking past vacations and ahead to the next school year. As an influx of new construction was met with declining college enrollment this year, these REITs faced challenges.

While many of the larger real estate investment trusts made presentations at the 2015 REITWeek Conference in New York, specialized trusts took center stage during a panel focused on how healthy real estate property fundamentals are benefiting the data center, cell tower, timber, advertising, and farmland sectors. Plus, interest rate survey results from Trepp.

Last week, Yahoo became the most recent large tech company to announce layoffs and office closures as it explores alternatives for its web business. Moves like this highlight the growing issue of sublease space among tech and energy companies, whose expansion drove demand for office space in recent years. Are new availabilities relieving tight conditions or a sign of something more severe? Plus, interest rate survey data from Trepp.