What is UrbanPlan? 

Urban Plan is an education program that teaches high school and university students about development and planning issues through a real estate development simulation classroom exercise.

UrbanPlan was created by the Urban Land Institute (ULI), a nonprofit real estate organization with over 25,000 members worldwide and developed in developed at The Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at the University of California, Berkeley in collaboration with ULI, and a team of high school economics and government teachers. This collaboration insured the reality of the land use problem plus the academic credibility and standards-based content demanded by educators.

• The UrbanPlan curriculum aligns with all state and national content standards for high school economics and provides a much-needed local government component to the government curriculum.Urban Plan is ULI’s land use planning and real estate development program. Urban Plan strives to change the land use decision making process by providing high school juniors and seniors with the understanding, insights and language to become engaged and informed problem-solvers.
• UrbanPlan employs the best practices of problem and project-based learning.

Click on the links below to watch Urban Plan in action!

ULI Video on Urban Plan

George Lucas Video on Urban Plan

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Letter from the Teacher

Dear ULI members,

My name is Ryan Stanley and I am an Honors Economics teacher at Desert Vista High School. My classroom was chosen as the place to pilot UrbanPlan in Arizona. I am extremely grateful to have had this opportunity and want to thank ULI for developing UrbanPlan and thank the local representatives who brought UP to my students. I wanted to write and explain what this experience meant to my students, to myself and to the volunteers.

As a teacher, my top priorities are always to develop critical thinking and to prepare my students for the  “real world”. Simply put, I want my class to challenge my students’ thinking and to be relative to their lives. UrbanPlan achieved both of these objectives while also applying basic economic principles and forcing them to work together with their classmates. I found my students eager to come to class and excitedly getting to work the second they came in the room. All the things I want as a teacher were happening with UrbanPlan.

A key cornerstone to the success of the program is the volunteers that come into the classroom. I was overwhelmed with how well prepared these volunteers were and how valuable their input was to the students. My students really enjoyed the opportunity to interact with professionals from the field of land development. It was an enriching experience for all involved; the students, myself, and the land use professionals. My students were enthusiastic throughout the program and appreciative to have had the experience.

I cannot express enough how thankful I am to use this program. The first experience exceeded all expectations and I sincerely hope to continue using UrbanPlan for years to come. At the beginning of the unit, I told my students it would be the coolest thing they have ever done in school. At the projects conclusion, my students agreed. Thank you to ULI for developing this program, and special thanks to Dan Colton, Gena Trimble and Sheila Hamilton, and all the UrbanPlan volunteers for helping it find its way to Desert Vista High School and making sure the first time was a success.  

Sincerely,
Ryan Stanley
Honors Economics Teacher
Desert Vista High School