ULI Infrastructure Forum at 2023 Spring Meeting

Resumen de video: The Infrastructure Forum brings together global leaders in infrastructure, land use, real estate, capital market, finance, economics, investment, legal, property management, market analysis, strategy management, sustainability, planning, urban design, architecture, landscape architecture, transportation, engineering and other professionals from public, private and non-profit sectors to examine the most pressing infrastructure, land use and real estate decisions of the 21st century. The Americas is the among largest contributor to the global carbon footprint, where 1/3 is due to urban footprint, 1/3 is due to buildings, and 1/3 is due to industrial agriculture.

Within metro regions, community needs, multi-generational values, and capital allocation are changing. Flooding, drought, urban heatwave, food insecurity, and energy consumption have added pressure on communities. Transit investment, when not integrated with land use and real estate decisions, did not translate to reducing auto-dependency and VMT. Achieving 50 percent carbon reduction by 2030 requires real estate and land use professionals to reshape our world into people-centric walkable communities led by decarbonization and equitable public realm, regenerate our land and assets into carbon sinks, and humanize metro regions into 15-min communities.

At the ULI 2023 Spring Meeting, the Infrastructure Forum focused on ‘Building 15-minute Communities and Transit-oriented Metro Regions TOCs: How Leaders can Align Smart Infrastructure and Land Use Decisions with Real Estate Investments.’ 15-minute communities are compact development with mixed-uses and well-connected places where residents and businesses can walk to their daily needs. It accelerates decarbonization, reduces ecological footprint, increases economic vitality, builds resilience, and advances social equity.

Industry leaders will examine how to make smart, forward-focused alignment of infrastructure and land use decisions through multi-infrastructure delivery and co-benefits creation in 6 scalable real-estate prototypes covering:

• Decarbonize metro regions with a network of 15-minute communities
• Diversify central business districts CBDs to create decarbonized, affordable, live-in downtowns
• Densify suburban corridors into walkable, mixed-use innovation districts
• Humanize edge cities into resilient retirement and child-friendly communities
• Transform suburban mall sites into transit and trail-oriented mixed-use hubs
• Activate exurbs as working landscapes of agrihoods and nature-based solutions

With a focus on implementation, the Infrastructure Forum will include a research presentation, a case-studies panel, and a leadership strategy workshop to explore how to engage/market, finance/fund, design/construct, operate/maintain infrastructure and real estate assets to extend economic life and performance, covering:

• One environment infrastructure – how to deliver parks, green streets, flood protection/stormwater management, environmental restoration, and utilities in one project
• One community infrastructure – how to deliver education-social-health-culture-co-work space under one roof
• One energy infrastructure – how to deliver micro-grid/DE, PV, EV, timber, and circular waste within one eco-district
• One mobility infrastructure – how to deliver transit, micro-mobility, broadband, smart city system to provide one-trip experience
• One vision infrastructure – how to structure a community-scale platform to combine resources, create co-champions to lead multi-sectors working teams, and engage the community

Explore leadership decision framework covering:

• Leadership – leverage co-leadership to lead forward motion
• Market – leverage shared data to assess needs and stay current with policies/trends
• Engagement – create community champions through engagement
• Entitlement – strategize land entitlement and co-create community-scale performance metrics
• Design – develop interdisciplinary design frameworks to bring the best in industries
• Finance – structure financing partnerships to accelerate delivery, reduce uncertainty and costs

While the scalable prototypes will be focused on North American communities, this effort can be expanded to the ULI Asia-Pacific and ULI Europe or tailored to specific District Councils to create thriving communities around the globe.