Urban Land Institute And City Club Team Up For Virtual Forum

Press release from ULI Cleveland:

Oct. 15, 2020

The Cleveland District Council of the Urban Land Institute is excited to announce that it is teaming up with the City of Cleveland to host a two-day virtual symposium, Building the 21st Century City: The Future Is Now!. The symposium is slated for March 2021.

The themes of the 21st Century City symposium will be highlighted in a City Club Virtual Forum, starting at 12:30 p.m. on Friday, October 16. The themes include best practices that will allow cities to maximize their future prosperity, with an emphasis on inclusivity. Other topics include current initiatives nationally and in Cleveland. Speakers include Director of City Planning Freddy Collier Jr. and Brookings Institution Fellow Adie Tomer.

In 2014, ULI and the City of Cleveland partnered to advance Cleveland’s efforts to update its current zoning code. A conference held in 2015 focused discussion on how the City of Cleveland’s regulatory environment can be updated to ensure that the city creates development projects that promote walkable communities. The city has begun work on a fresh draft of the zoning code, with plans to roll it out in a few wards and then expand its applicability throughout Cleveland. This year, ULI and the City of Cleveland are embarking on a new initiative that will continue the work to make Cleveland a competitive city in the 21st Century.

The 21st Century City symposium will facilitate development of realistic programs and policies, as well as advocacy priorities by the City of Cleveland. It will facilitate development of realistic outcomes and results the city may utilize to develop a planning framework to firmly establish it as a more competitive and smarter city, ready for the changing technology of the 21st Century.

"Technology and innovation are having a profound impact on how cities will function in the 21st Century," said Director of City Planning Freddy Collier, Jr.

"Building the 21st Century City will require policy and system changes that will ensure equitable outcomes and embrace the innovations which will influence the civic landscape. Cities have to be nimble in order to be competitive. We want to ensure that technology and innovation serves the fundamental purpose of improving quality of life," he added.

The 21st Century City symposium will feature keynote speaker Ben Hammersley, a futurist and strategic forecaster, and will engage a cross section of stakeholders within the city. It will focus on three critical components of the development of cities in the 21st Century: technology, inclusive economic development and mobility.

"The Urban Land Institute Cleveland is proud to continue partnering with the City of Cleveland and to have the support of The City Club of Cleveland and The Cleveland Foundation,” said ULI Cleveland District Council Chair Steve Ross.

“As a non-profit, non-partisan land use organization, ULI Cleveland is the ideal institution to facilitate conversations between local stakeholders and national knowledge leaders who will work to develop actionable steps towards bringing Cleveland into the 21st Century. The virtual forum taking place on October 16 is kicking off this important conversation that will continue in March 2021 with a virtual symposium," Ross said.

Visit www.cityclub.org beginning at 12:30pm Friday, Oct. 16 to watch the livestream.

This press release was produced by ULI Cleveland. The views expressed here are the author's own.