Outreach
UrbanPlan is a curriculum created by ULI and delivered in high schools and universities throughout North America and Europe. The mission of UrbanPlan is to create a more sophisticated level of discourse among people involved in land use decisions, through educating tomorrow’s voters, neighbours, community leaders, public officials, and land use professionals so that–together, we can create better communities. ULI Alberta is pleased to collaborate with the University of Alberta’s Applied Land Use Planning program to offer UrbanPlan in Edmonton for the first time.
Student development teams respond to an “RFP” (request for proposals) for the redevelopment of a brownfield site in a hypothetical community. Each team member assumes one of five roles: finance director, marketing director, city liaison, neighbourhood 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.
Through a hands-on, interactive process, teams address challenging financial, market, social, political, and design issues, they develop a pro forma and three-dimensional model of their plan, and they present their proposal to a “city council” of ULI members that awards the development contract to the winning team.
We are looking for volunteers to act as facilitators in the classroom and to form City Council.
The Mission of UrbanPlan is to create a more sophisticated level of discourse among local stakeholders involved in land use decisions through the education of tomorrow’s voters, neighbors, community leaders, public officials, and land use professionals so, together, we can create better communities.
At three points during the program, local land use professionals assist UrbanPlan (UP) by acting as:
“Facilitators”: Through Socratic interaction, volunteers challenge the students to think more critically about the UrbanPlan issues and the specific responsibilities of their “roles” (financial analyst, marketing director, site planner, city liaison, and neighborhood liaison).
“Guest Speakers”: UP volunteers engage in interactive discussions with students about their own work projects or specific professional challenges. Through thoughtful questioning, the presenter helps students relate these issues and decisions to struggles the students are experiencing in UrbanPlan.
“City Council”: UP volunteers hear student presentations, challenge the students proposals as would happen in an actual city council hearing, and award the development contract to the winning development team.
To launch UrbanPlan in Canada, the ULI Alberta district council has partnered with the Westman Centre for Real Estate Studies at the University of Calgary and with The University of Edmonton.
Prior to the training session, you will receive the UrbanPlan manual to review, which may take a couple of hours. The training session itself will be 8 hours (with a break). Finally, you will come into the classroom once to engage with students for 2 or 3 hours. Your total time commitment is about 12 to 15 hours.
For more information about UrbanPlan, please visit the official ULI website.