Citistates Group

Miller is author of Emerging Trends in Real Estate, the leading commercial real estate industry outlook report, published annually by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Urban Land Institute (ULI). He has written Emerging Trends since 1993 and lectures frequently on trends in real estate, including the future of America’s major 24-hour urban centers and sprawling suburbs. He also is author of Infrastructure 2007: Global Perspectives, an influential new ULI report on how America’s deteriorating infrastructure offers a broken model for future economic growth. Recently, he completed coauthorship of a book draft on quality of life strategies over the next quarter century.

In his writings and speeches, Miller contends that America’s most successful and livable places will be 24-hour cities positioned along global pathways. Coastal locations, attractive geographic barriers, and inter-modal transport centers make regions more desirable for businesses and people. But successful places also require 24-hour characteristics to lure the highly educated work forces necessary to fuel today’s growing “brainpower” industries—technology, healthcare and financial services. Both cities and suburbs, he says, suffer without essential 24-hour attributes (1) attractive neighborhoods easily accessible to office cores, (2) pedestrian friendly neighborhood retail (supermarkets, pharmacies, cleaners, restaurants), (3) multifaceted entertainment/arts/ recreation environments (theaters, museums, concert halls, arenas, parks), and (4) mass transportation connecting neighborhoods to commercial centers. Mega 24-hour cities like New York, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco may be more affluent and elitist, but their burgeoning brainpower industries pay more so employees can afford to live in them. In turn, car dependent suburban sprawldoms—like Atlanta and Dallas—may be cheaper than 24-hour regions, but lifestyle advantages strangle in congestion and poorly planned growth.

Outside his published work, Miller is a prominent communications/institutional investor-marketing strategist, helping corporate clients develop and execute branding and communications programs. He led the recent re-branding of GMAC Commercial Mortgage to Capmark Financial Group Inc. and he was part of the management team that helped build Equitable Real Estate Investment Management, Inc. (subsequently Lend Lease Real Estate Investments, Inc.) into the leading real estate advisor to pension funds and other real institutional investors. He joined the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the U.S. in 1981, moving to Equitable Real Estate in 1984 as head of Corporate/Marketing Communications. In the 1980′s he oversaw public relations for several of the country’s most prominent real estate developments including New York’s Trump Tower and the Equitable Center.

During his 22-year career at Equitable/Lend Lease, Miller oversaw the company’s public relations, advertising, marketing communications, annual reports, investor relations, websites, and client event programs. Earlier in his career, Jonathan Miller was a reporter for Gannett Newspapers.

Speech topics

• 24-hour Cities v. Suburban Sprawldoms
• America’s Best Places to Live and Work/Now to 2030
• America’s Best Places to Invest
• Emerging Trends in Real Estate Investment/Development

Last updated  March 29, 2010