Healthy Places
The ULI Healthy Places program helps real estate and community leaders build healthier and more equitable places.
Real estate developers and land-use decision makers are essential partners in efforts to make communities healthier, more sustainable, and more equitable. This focus can yield stronger outcomes through increased community and public-sector support, reduced operating costs, and stronger communities.
The Healthy Places program, which is part of the Lewis Center for Sustainability in Real Estate, helps ULI members and their partners build places of lasting value by meeting the demand for healthy, thriving communities.
By working closely with ULI members and partners to produce actionable guidance on pressing challenges, host immersive learning experiences, deliver community technical assistance, organize leadership networks, and address policy bottlenecks, the Healthy Places program catalyzes action and investment to address critical health challenges and create projects with enduring value.
A Comprehensive Approach
The Healthy Places program works with ULI members across multiple scales—from individual buildings to neighborhood and regional planning—through a diverse range of topics. We help catalyze the housing, transportation, parks and open spaces, buildings, and other community elements that support health and well-being.
Recognizing that systemic barriers continue to limit access to healthy environments for many people and communities, social and racial equity are central to this work.
The Healthy Places program centers on three key areas:
- Leadership and learning: Building the capacity of ULI members and partners to integrate health into real estate practice through cross-sector workshops, leadership programs, and more.
- Research and resources: Producing practical tools, publications, and case studies that address challenges and facilitate investment in healthy and equitable places.
- Community impact: Supporting local efforts through technical assistance, ULI District Council programs, and partnerships that translate ideas into action.
Resources and Programs
Healthy Places resources and programs include:
- Leadership and Learning: Healthy Places cultivates member and partner champions for health and social equity.
- Industry, Buildings, Community: Healthy Places drives industry change and promotes health and social equity in communities, development and buildings.
- Healthy Housing: Housing directly affects individuals’ health and the wellbeing of communities. Healthy Places elevates health as a priority in housing.
- Healthy, Equitable, and Sustainable Transportation: Transportation is a key social determinant of health. Healthy Places explores how cities and real estate leaders can advance healthy, equitable, active and sustainable transportation policies and practices.
- Equitable Parks and Open Spaces: Healthy Places makes cities and regions healthier by supporting equitable access to parks.
- Food and Real Estate: Healthy Places promotes equitable access to healthy food through real estate strategies.
Join the Movement
Healthy places should be the standard, not the exception. The Healthy Places program invites developers, planners, investors, civic leaders, and others to collaborate with ULI members and partners to make health a defining feature of the built environment.
Explore our latest research, events, and opportunities to get involved or contact us at [email protected] to learn more.