UrbanPlan

Through UrbanPlan, students discover how the forces of our market economy clash and collaborate with the nonmarket forces of our representative democracy to create the built environment. This insight provides the essential foundation for any sophisticated land use discussion.

UrbanPlan is a realistic, engaging and academically challenging classroom-based curriculum. It provides high school seniors hands-on experience with the issues, trade-offs and economics of land use planning and urban redevelopment. Students learn how supply and demand interact with regulations, politics, and interest groups. UrbanPlan is an award winning curriculum developed by the Fisher School of Economics, University of California, Berkeley.

The Challenge

During the course of three weeks, students form development teams to respond to a “Request for Proposals” for the betterment of a mythical redevelopment area with the goal of winning the contract. Teams address challenging financial, social, political, and design issues, develop a business proposal and a three-dimensional model of their plan, and present their proposal to a “City Council” made up of ULI members who award the contract to the winning team.

Get Involved

Local land use and real estate development professionals, who have attended UrbanPlan volunteer training, interact several times with the student teams—as facilitators, presenters, and jurors. Training includes a five-hour training session (plus a homework assignment). “Facilitators” and “presenters” volunteer a minimum of two class periods (50 minutes). “City council members” (jurors) volunteer approximately one-half day.

For more information, email [email protected]

“I am only in my 4th semester at ASU studying Sustainability and I have used what I learned from UrbanPlan constantly in my studies. …I recommend your class to any student I talk to and tell them UrbanPlan can be intense and intimidating but a ton of fun and helpful later on in your life and career.”

Former UrbanPlan Student Participant

UrbanPlan Field Trip

The ULI Arizona District Council would like to thank the valued contributors of the UrbanPlan field trip at CityScape, hosted by RED Development, LLC. This year’s event featured an amazing array of knowledgeable speakers, enlightening discussion, and phenomenal development locations; we appreciate your efforts in making the day such a success!

This year, thirty+ UrbanPlan program students representing the winning teams from Corona del Sol High School and Brophy College Prep joined ULI Arizona for a real-world tour of what they learned in the program, and with your help, we’ve raised the bar even higher on the level of quality expected in our UrbanPlan schools.