Bruce Nordquist’s 2015 ULI Fall Meeting Blog
I attend ULI in search of new ideas and the public/private partners that are making them happen through market awareness, planning and development. As a professional local city planner, with over 40 years of experience now applied in the City of Apple Valley, MN there is always a search for and recognition of trends and best practices underway. The 2015 Fall Conference in San Francisco was no different, presenting transforming ideas, new directions and reminders about limitations and boundaries.
A conference theme this year was “disruption” best evidenced by the emphasis on the success of Airbnb and Uber, as examples. Imagine these successful businesses where ideas and connection become assets and value creation includes and prioritizes not just the experiential but with great emphasis on value creation through the social connection. Place making and real and traditional land use and development still exists. The opportunities, risk assessment and delivery continue to evolve and remain top discussion items as new development continues to be defined in new ways.
These conferences always meet my expectations because you can be exposed to what’s “out there”, risk disruptive thinking and have practical data driven trends, fresh answers to urban decay with transformative responses, or application to my specialty area, “suburban intensive development”. If your marketplace calls for walkable and mixed use, you can always come away with fresh perspective that can be applied to suburban places.
Part of this conference experience for me included my first Community Development Council (Green) meeting for a day. The information was in depth on market trends and development responses. I appreciate now the role the Council agendas have in bringing public and private partners together in smaller formats to listen and discuss current community development topics.
The ULI Conference is where planners and other valuable professional’s vision, plan, discuss, transact, design, develop, and build the places of our future. Be a part of the positive aspects of change and disruption as your outcome.
