Managing Editor
Jeremy Newsum, a resident of the United Kingdom and the first chair of the Urban Land Institute from outside the United States, is scheduled to meet this morning with the ULI North Florida District Council. The 74-year-old nonprofit education and research ULI has 30,000 members among 95 countries and focuses on responsible land use and creat-ing sustainable communities. Members include developers, builders, property owners, investors, appraisers, public officials and others involved in the industry. Newsum is an executive with The Grosvenor Group property company. Newsum spoke with the Daily Record on Tuesday.
What will you tell the North Florida ULI Council members?
I don’t think I will be telling them anything. I am coming to listen. I am the first chairman of the ULI who isn’t American and I start out with a deficiency of knowledge. I have been very keen to get around. I was keen to hear the district councils. Everyone is doing something a little bit different.
What do you want to hear?
I am looking for ideas, I suppose. ULI is an ideas organization and sometimes, translating ideas (among worldwide councils) is not easy, and it seems to me that the chairman can do this. Not all district councils are the same. One way to inspire those who have need of a little more inspiration is to translate ideas. In North Florida, the Reality Check (planning initiative) has been a particularly important part of the district council.
Are you visiting all the councils?
I took office last July and it is a two-year stint. There are regions I want to visit, the West Coast, East Coast, South, and the middle part of the U.S. would be very interesting and very different.
I have visited a number on the West Coast and a number on the East Coast, so I must be up to 10 or a dozen. The membership is around 30,000 around the world and ULI is becoming a more and more international organization.
It’s not just one set of ideas (that matter). We look at the infrastructure and sustainability and the fact we can pull together experiences from all over the world.
What are the common issues?
I think the general issue is how you maintain urban society. They are adapting all the time and the ULI’s membership, which goes across many disciplines, is at the forefront about how cities develop.
Infrastructure is a common challenge absolutely everywhere and ... the issue of sustainability is common and ... the affordability of housing is critical.
All of these problems are only solved if you have effective growth. It does bring everything to bear. All of these issues are part and parcel of what most of us experience, which is life in a town.
What do you think you will learn here?
It’s easier to answer that question after I get here. I work for Grosvenor and we’ve owned property in Tampa before. I have to say my knowledge of the area is pretty limited. I am interested in infrastructure, particularly, and transportation. And we have this terrible business of the oil rig explosion and the leaking oil. That is one particular issue around energy and sustainability, but it makes people think more generally.
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