The ULI Building Healthy Places Initiative is leveraging the power of ULI’s global networks to shape projects and places in ways that improve the health of people and communities.

4 ULI District Councils Selected to Participate in Healthy Corridors Project

Last fall, ULI launched a project focused on transforming isolated and automobile-dependent arterials into places that are more health promoting and accessible for people who live, work, use services, and travel along them. Four communities were selected through a competitive application process with ULI district councils to participate as demonstration project sites: Nashville, Tennessee; Denver, Colorado; Boise, Idaho; and Los Angeles, California. The project is supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Colorado Health Foundation. Learn more.

Coming Soon: New ULI Report Provides Strategies for Healthy Development

ULI’s Building Healthy Places Initiative is releasing a new report in February, the Building Healthy Places Toolkit: Strategies for Enhancing Health in the Built Environment. The report provides 21 evidence-based recommendations, each with a set of action-oriented strategies, across three categories: physical activity, healthy food and drinking water, and healthy environment and social well-being. Learn more.

TEDx Talk Explores the Power of Uniqueness for Cities

Ed McMahon, ULI senior resident fellow, gave a TEDx talk in Jacksonville, Florida, focusing on the competitive economic advantages of community distinctiveness. As discussed in ULI’s Ten Principles for Building Healthy Places, embracing the unique character of cities can also improve community health and promote physical activity of residents and visitors. Learn more.

Dr. Richard J. Jackson to Receive the 2015 Henry Hope Reed Award

Environmental health expert and ULI Building Healthy Places Initiative Advisory Group member Dr. Richard J. Jackson was named the recipient of the 2015 Henry Hope Reed Award, to be presented by the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture on March 21 in conjunction with the Richard H. Driehaus Prize in architecture. The Reed award recognizes the work of an individual working outside the practice of architecture who has supported the cultivation of the traditional city and its design. Jackson’s research has helped spur a renewed focus nationwide on how the design of buildings, neighborhoods, and cities can have tremendous impacts on health. Learn more.

Street Design Linked to Health Outcomes

A new paper published by researchers at the University of Colorado Denver and the University of Connecticut, explores links between specific characteristics of street networks and health outcomes, such as obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease. Findings in the report, “Community Design, Street Networks, and Public Health,” show that the design of street grids may have a larger impact on health outcomes than previous research suggested. Learn more.