In 2015, Austin, Texas’ mayor at the time, Steve Adler, brought together business leaders, real estate professionals, and housing experts to take on the crisis in affordable rental housing and the risks it posed to the city’s workforce stability and economic sustainability. With insights and research from a ULI Technical Advisory Panel and ULI’s Terwilliger Center for Housing, the Austin Housing Conservancy fund was born, offering a revolutionary approach to preserving workforce housing. Now known as the Texas Housing Conservancy, the fund became the nation’s first to combine a nonprofit investment manager, Affordable Central Texas, with an open-end private equity fund.

A seminar organized by the ULI Singapore NEXT Committee presented attendees with the little-known concept of real estate “tokenization,” or fractional investing/trading, as a potential bridge between private investors and direct ownership. Although not new, tokenization in real estate is a niche market, particularly in Asia Pacific, with Singapore hosting a small number of the specialized digital platforms.

U.S. President Donald J. Trump signed the nearly 900-page One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law on July 4. The budget reconciliation legislation extends numerous provisions included in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that directly affect commercial real estate, including reinstatement of bonus depreciation and extension of the Qualified Opportunity Zone Program. It also incorporates provisions aimed at incentivizing affordable housing, including a significant expansion of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program. At the same time, the new law makes major cuts to wind and solar incentives.

In a historically redlined neighborhood of Minneapolis, a former industrial warehouse has become a supportive, low-barrier sanctuary for the unsheltered. Up to 200 residents can live at Avivo Village, each in their own private sleeping unit. Single-occupant shower rooms, nongendered restrooms, and communal kitchenettes and coffee areas are all ADA-compliant.

Ten built environment projects from eight countries across the EMEA region have been announced as the finalists in the sixth annual ULI Europe Awards for Excellence, which recognize exemplary projects and programs in the private, public, and non-profit sectors. This year’s finalists comprise cutting edge refurbishment, restoration and new build projects, and include residential, healthcare, mixed use, education, community, laboratory, and office projects from Italy, Germany, the UK, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, France, and Spain.

The opportunity to plan and design more than 50 acres of inner-city urban development in any city is significant, but in Pasadena, California, it is a possible inflection point in the city’s history, an opportunity to redress past mistakes, and to set the stage for future generations to benefit from perceptive and forward-thinking planning.

Following a masterplan adopted by British Land, the AustralianSuper pension fund, and the Southwark Council, developers are now seven years into a 15-year project to transform a 53-acre (21.44 hectares) parcel of industrial land and a former quay into a community that will include as many as 3,000 new homes, office, retail, leisure, and entertainment space.

The mission of the ULI Terwilliger Center for Housing has been to ensure that everyone has a home that meets their needs at a price they can afford. Established in 2007 with a gift from longtime member and former ULI chairman J. Ronald Terwilliger, the Center’s activities include technical assistance engagements, forums and convenings, research and publications, and an awards program. The goal is to catalyze the production and preservation of a full spectrum of housing options.

The mechanics of planning and building a major development may be familiar to real estate professionals, but the entire process can be opaque and intimidating to laypersons in the communities most directly affected. ULI’s new report, Development for Nondevelopers, aims to bridge that knowledge gap. It offers a clear, practical guide to how development projects come together—and how communities can assure the project ultimately meets local needs.

A two-week program, hosted by UCL’s Department of Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering and led by José Torero, Matthew Heywood, and Michael Woodrow, with a cohort of early-career professionals tested the limits of The London Plan and imaged what could lie ahead through a fellowship themed “Innovating Tomorrow’s Resilience.”

Climate Week NYC, run by the nonprofit Climate Group and held in parallel with the United Nations General Assembly, makes its annual return this September 21–28 with hundreds of in-person, hybrid, and virtual events. This jam-packed week brings together a powerful cross-section of climate leaders, including inspiring activists; visionary artists; and industry leaders in real estate, business, finance, and government.

In September 2023, Hong Kong was hit by its heaviest rainfall on record—nearly 6.3 inches (160 mm) in a single hour. Link Asset Management’s Temple Mall North, like many other buildings, suffered severe flood damage. In response, the company invested in detachable flood barriers and Internet-of-Things (IoT) sensors to mitigate future risk. For Link’s bottom line, this resilience investment translated into an 11.7 percent reduction in insurance premiums.

Currently, vacancy rates in the Washington, D.C. area are around 20 percent, in line with the national average. The nationwide housing shortage, meanwhile, has hit a record high of 4.7 million homes, despite a five-year uptrend in new construction. The deficit is particularly pronounced in highly desirable urban and inner-suburban locations such as Alexandria, Virginia.

As aging retail continue to evolve, one increasingly popular trend has been to redesign malls as town centers—recalling a time when such commercial districts were the heart and soul of a community. Mall–to–town center retrofits are emerging throughout the nation, especially in suburban communities, where pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use environments are highly attractive to millennials now raising families.

Across North America, cities are confronting a housing crisis that demands urgent, innovative responses. In Toronto, the launch of the Rapid Housing Initiative (RHI) in April 2020 marked a pivotal moment—an accelerated effort at the height of the pandemic to deliver safe, stable housing. Since then, unprecedented investments have been made in communities across Ontario to address housing insecurity, reshaping the province’s residential landscape.