UrbanPlan
Discovering the Fundamental Forces in Development
UrbanPlan is an exciting educational initiative of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) developed in partnership with the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics (FCREUE) at the University of California at Berkeley and a team of high school economics teachers.
The Mission
The Mission of UrbanPlan is to create a more sophisticated level of discourse among local stakeholders involved in land use decisions through education of tomorrow’s voters, neighbors, community leaders, public officials, and land use professionals so, together, we can create better communities.
Through UrbanPlan, students discover how the forces of our market economy clash and collaborate with the nonmarket forces of our representative democracy to create the built environment. This insight provides the essential foundation for any sophisticated land use discussion.
What Is UrbanPlan?
UrbanPlan is a realistic, engaging, and academically demanding classroom-based curriculum in which students learn about the fundamental forces that affect development in the United States. Students experience the challenging issues, private and public sector roles, complex trade-offs, and fundamental economics in play when proposing realistic land use solutions to vexing growth challenges.
UrbanPlan is curriculum unit for core content classes at the university and high school levels. The curriculum content is identical.
See what ULI members, university professors and high school teachers say about UrbanPlan.
For more details, see Teacher FAQ.
UrbanPlan at the University–Professional Development
Objective: UrbanPlan at the university will create land use professionals–developers, planners, architects, investors, and policy makers–who are more sophisticated and effective when they enter the workforce.
The primary target is graduate students whose focus is land use: city and regional planning, MBA/real estate, and architecture. It can be effective in carefully selected fourth-year undergraduate classes. It is not designed for students whose professional focus does not relate to land use.
UrbanPlan moves students from a theoretical and ideological understanding of their discipline to the practical realities and demands of the development team and process.
UrbanPlan at High School–Creating Informed Citizens
The curriculum was developed for and is only supported in economics and selected government classes. The curriculum aligns with all state and national content standards for high school economics and provides a much-needed local government component to government classes.
For more details, see Teacher FAQ.
How Does UrbanPlan Work in the Classroom?
Student development teams respond to a “request for proposals” for the redevelopment of a blighted site in a hypothetical community. Each team member assumes one of five roles: finance director, marketing director, city liaison, neighborhood liaison, or site planner. Through these roles, students develop a visceral understanding of the various market and nonmarket forces and stakeholders in the development process. They must reconcile the often-competing agendas to create a well-designed, market-responsive, and sustainable project.
Teams address challenging financial, market, social, political, and design issues; develop a pro forma and three-dimensional model of their plan; and present their proposal to a “city council” of ULI members that awards the development contract to the winning team.
At strategic times during the project, land use professionals, who have attended a full day of UrbanPlan volunteer training, interact several times with the student teams.
- As “Facilitators,” through Socratic interaction volunteers challenge the students to think more critically about the UrbanPlan issues and the specific responsibilities of their “role” (finance, market, site planner, city liaison, neighborhood liaison).
- As “Presenters,” UP volunteers engage in interactive discussions with students on the member’s own project work or specific professional challenges. Through thoughtful questioning, the presenter helps students relate these issues and decisions to struggles the students are experiencing in UrbanPlan.
- As “City Council,” UP volunteers hear student presentations, challenge their proposals as would happen in an actual city council hearing, and award the development contract to the winning development team.
The Impact
- UP has reached 20,000 high school and university students since 2004.
- 18 ULI District Councils run UrbanPlan programs. See programs.
- More members (1500+), including trustees, governors, and product council members, participate in UP than in any other national or local ULI program.
- 148 high school classrooms are running UP in academic year 2009-10.
- 16 universities, primarily graduate level, are running UP in academic year 2009-2010.