ULI was founded during the Great Depression on December 14, 1936 as the National Real Estate Foundation for Practical Research and Education, with the intention of becoming a research and education college in real estate and "urbiculture." In 1939 the organization changed its name to the Urban Land Institute, two years after establishing its headquarters in Chicago, Illinois. In 1940, an internal bulletin stated the Institute's mission as having "been established to assist American cities in their problems of planning, replanning, construction, and reconstruction."