ULI Paris conference stresses economic and finance issues

In a variation on the famous line from Benjamin Franklin that ‘nothing is certain but death and taxes’, ULI’s 15th annual conference in Paris gets under way today with the title ‘Nothing is Certain but Debt and Taxes’.

Embracing four main themes - money/politics, land, environment and ideas - the conference programme will be wide-ranging in terms of speakers and subject matter, reflecting ULI’s multidisciplinary approach. There will be a strong emphasis on financial and macro economic issues, with keynote speeches from leading economist Ian Shepherdson and former Irish prime minister John Bruton.

But there will also be wide berth for staple ULI topics such as land (re-)use, urban development and retrofitting. Ricky Burdett, director of the Cities Programme at the London School of Economics (LSE), will give a presentation on ‘The Next Urban Economy’ and its implications for land use. The Next Urban Economy is an LSE project that investigates how the recent recession has affected the economic and social prosperity of EU and US cities and their regions. Burdett will present findings on Munich, Turin, Barcelona and Seoul.

The outlook for city development will be discussed from several angles. Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas, chairman of the London-based New West End Company, will answer the question ‘Where Will The Money Come From?’ in her presentation. Drawing on her own long-standing experience in urban funding issues, she will highlight the benefits of business improvement districts (BIDs) and other instruments such as Tax Increment Financing (TIF) which allow city development to go ahead in recessionary circumstances.