Panels

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Panel #1 - The Future of Housing: Radical Ideas, Real Strategies

 

As housing affordability continues to deteriorate in cities across the globe, incremental solutions are no longer enough. This panel convenes developers, policymakers and start-ups to explore innovative models that challenge the dominant paradigms of housing production and ownership and rethink solutions to housing in the United States.

 

Panel #2 - Building a Climate Resilient Future 

 

As cities deal with the growing impacts of climate change, designing for resilience has taken center stage to ensure investments in urban infrastructure can adapt to changing conditions while also providing community co-benefits. This panel brings together perspectives from the key sectors that are involved in building a resilient future: city governments, landscape architects and designers, and investors.

 

Panel #3 - Keeping Cities Moving: Fresh Ideas for Funding Transit

 

Public transit systems across the U.S. face mounting pressures from shrinking federal support, aging infrastructure, rising costs, and increasing demand. This panel explores how transportation agencies and their partners are adapting to constrained funding while continuing to modernize urban mobility. Panelists will examine strategies to reduce operations and maintenance costs, leverage technology, and creatively combine public, private, and alternative funding sources to build transit systems that are resilient, equitable, and economically viable.

 

Panel #4 - Cities in Transformation: AI and Technology Across the Urban Value Chain

 

As technological innovation and AI adoption accelerate, city landscapes are transforming quicker than ever, catalyzing new opportunities and complex challenges across every part of the urban value chain. This interdisciplinary panel brings together leaders from big tech, private investment, and public-sector governance to explore how these forces are intersecting to shape cities' future resource needs and consider how, where, and for whom technology and AI will redefine urban life.

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Fireside Chats

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Fireside Chat #1 - Building Community, Reimagining Safety 

 

Community groups across the Philadelphia region are reshaping dominant narratives around crime and public safety in our cities. Building safer urban futures will require inclusive engagement strategies and sustained investment in policies that promote clean, safe, and accessible environments for all residents. In this session, speakers will highlight how historically disinvested communities are taking charge of their own futures through ambitious, community-led programs that empower youth, build financial literacy, and reduce violence across the Philadelphia region.

 

Fireside Chat #2 -  Rethinking How We Build: Alternative Building Materials

 

Building materials are a critical lever for reducing emissions and advancing sustainable real estate development. This fireside chat brings together leaders to explore innovative materials and construction approaches, such as mass timber, carbon-sequestering materials, and 3D-printed housing used in adaptive reuse and new development. Speakers will discuss how policy tools, incentives, and market mechanisms can support adoption at scale, how impact is measured, and which solutions are most replicable in a changing funding environment.

 

Fireside Chat #3 - Financing City Projects Through Public-Private Partnerships

 

Sustainable, cross-sector financing is essential as public budgets tighten and urban needs grow. This fireside chat brings together the Philadelphia City Fund, the Mayor’s Office, and the William Penn Foundation to examine how cross-sector partners align private capital with public budgets to deliver lasting impact. Examples from Philadelphia will ground the discussion, from health to sustainability to culture, while highlighting practices that travel.

 

Fireside Chat #4 -  From Recovery to Resilience in the Insurance Market

 

With hurricane and wildfire seasons breaking records year after year, climate-driven risks to homeowners and insurance providers are escalating, threatening the stability of housing markets across the country. Insurance market risk is exacerbating housing affordability challenges in many cities and threatens a broader economic crisis for governments at all scales if not addressed. This session will bring together experts from the insurance industry to dig into innovative policies, regulatory coordination needs, and funding solutions that can enable insurable communities of the future.

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Tech Demos

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Demo #1 - Blue Systems

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Blue Systems’ Smart Mobility Platform demo will showcase how urban agencies can harness real‑time and historical mobility data to better understand and manage multimodal transportation systems across their cities. The platform integrates data from shared bikes, e‑scooters, ride‑hailing, taxis, autonomous vehicles, delivery robots, and more into a unified dashboard, enabling planners and policymakers to visualize trends, enact data‑driven policies, monitor compliance, and optimize operations for safety, equity, and efficiency. They will demonstrate how this technology empowers cities to regulate mobility providers, improve active transportation systems, and make informed decisions that shape sustainable urban mobility futures. 

 

Demo #2 - Penn Thermal Architecture Lab

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The building sector accounts for nearly 40% of total global CO2 emissions, and almost half of the direct energy consumption in buildings is due to mechanical heating, cooling and ventilation demand. As the master-builders in charge of a building design from concept to construction details, architects can take an active role in the effort to make buildings more energy efficient. The Thermal Architecture Lab examines the building’s form and materials from the perspective of thermodynamics, as active agents in the transfer of heat between the human body and its environment. It researches novel technologies and design strategies to simultaneously reduce buildings’ energy demand and provide thermal shelter to people in a warming world.

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Lightning Lectures

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Lightning Lecture #1 - Laura Frances, ONE Architecture

 

ONE, a design and planning firm based in New York and Amsterdam that specializes in climate resilience, will showcase how it is reimagining existing urban landscapes across the country through urban design. Laura will highlight ONE’s pivotal work in projects such as the Big U in Lower Manhattan, East River Park, Brooklyn Marine Terminal, Coney Island, and Port Houston, among other projects. She will also share key lessons learned in aligning agencies and integrating community needs into complex urban resilience projects.

 

Lightning Lecture #2 - Rachel Seigel, The Pew Charitable Trusts

 

Rachel Siegel will provide an overview of manufactured housing and its evolution as a U.S. asset class, examining who owns manufactured housing, how it is built and financed, and the role it plays in today’s housing market. Her lecture will explore how manufactured housing can help address the housing affordability crisis by expanding supply at lower cost, while also addressing key risks facing the sector, including climate risk, insurance challenges and regulatory constraints.