Ben Schulman is the Vice President of Real Estate and Economic Development for the Memphis Medical District Collaborative. In this role, Ben is charged with expanding the ecosystem of developers and businesses working, investing, and building in the Medical District.
Ben's career has always been centered around space and place. His writings on architecture, urban planning, and policy, have been featured in outlets such as Architect, CityLab, Metropolis, and New Geography, among others. In prior positions, he served as the communications director for the Congress for the New Urbanism, and the Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Architects. While with AIA Chicago, he concurrently was the editor-in-chief of Chicago Architect magazine and the design section of Newcity Chicago. Before joining MMDC, he helped build, launch, and voice Small Change, an equity crowdfunding platform focused on impact-oriented real estate.
A Next City Vanguard Fellow, Ben has presented and lectured at numerous conferences and universities, and consistently contextualizes place through a variety of mediums: as the founder of Just Place, a platform that makes meaning of place through poetry and photography; the host of “Drowned in History,” a podcast finding hidden histories embedded in the landscape of Memphis, TN; and the freeform radio show, “The Other Side,” on community radio station, WYXR Memphis. He is currently a board member of Community LIFT, and the board president of BLDG Memphis.