UrbanPlan National Student Competition
Each year, teams of high school students from across North America who have completed UrbanPlan compete for over $10,000 in prize money in a virtual competition to redevelop 5.5 blocks in the fictional City of Yorktown.
As in both the regular UrbanPlan curriculum and real life, competitors must balance financial constraints, competing neighborhood priorities, historical preservation, the city’s desire for increased jobs, tax revenues, affordable housing, and concerns about social, economic and climate resilience.
However, the National Competition takes the exercise one step further by requiring teams to address additional challenges posed by the Yorktown City Council in response to current events. Past competitions have focused on topics such as mitigating the effects of declining office occupancy, increasing public open space, and providing affordable/attainable housing. See the competition challenges from previous years below:
RFP Addenda From Past Competitions:
“The National Urban Plan Competition gave students an opportunity to dig deeper into the political, social, economic, as well as design aspects that goes into public and private real estate redevelopment”
Mike Zane, Teacher at Kalani High School, Honolulu, HI
Funding for this competition was generously provided through a donation to ULI’s Annual Fund from the A&E Housing Foundation.
This year’s competition takes place virtually on Saturday, May 31st from 1pm-6pm ET. If you are an UrbanPlan teacher with an interested team who completed the program in the 2024-25 academic year, please email [email protected] for application details!