Breweries are clearly having their moment on the American urban scene. In 2016, there were 5,300 breweries, compared with 2,400 only four years earlier. In part, that might be due to the novelty and conviviality of enjoying a unique beverage at a hyper-local establishment. But breweries, it turns out, also have an almost magical ability to revitalize neighborhoods and even entire towns, according to panelists speaking at ULI’s 2017 Carolinas Meeting in March, and tend to be a boon wherever they open, at least in the current cycle.

Read more at UrbanLand: The Magazine of the Urban Land Institute.