TRACKS STATEMENTS

With the special collaboration of

EURA/UAA International Conference

City Futures in a Globalising World

4-6 June 2009, Madrid

Conference Tracks and Track Co-Chairs

The presentations at the conference will be structured into five related tracks. Here we provide a brief outline of the anticipated content of each track as well as the contact details for the co-chairs of each track.

Please note that all the tracks are multi-disciplinary. We welcome scholars from diverse disciplines as well as practitioners to participate.

Because we wish to encourage as much transatlantic dialogue as possible the co-chairs of each track are drawn from Europe and North America. Please feel free to contact any of the track co-chairs if you need any advice before submitting your abstract.

Track 1): Sustainable cities and regions, climate change, resource use, and adaptation

How sustainable are modern cities? What policies are being introduced to tackle climate change?

Twenty-first century cities and metropolitan regions are facing big challenges regarding their environmental, economic, and social sustainability.  Cities and regions must adapt to climate changes like warmer weather and more flood risk, the result of the current global warming trend.  They have to tackle the sources of gas emissions, reduce air pollution, and improve water quality.  They have to conserve land and energy and facilitate access to open green spaces.  Cities and metropolitan regions also have to maintain and attract the type of industries and economic activities that secure their residents' quality-of-life.  Not less important, they ought to provide education, jobs, and services to all their residents including the more vulnerable lower socio-economic groups.

This track welcomes studies focusing on these challenges and the policy efforts taken by cities and metropolitan regions to ensure their future sustainability.  Typical questions to be addressed by these studies include: How sustainable are cities and metropolitan regions?  How cities and regions around the world address the challenges of sustainability and climate change? What specific policies and planning tools they adopt to address these challenges?  What policy implementation lessons they can learn from each other?  The final question is about the role of education and goes beyond politics, adaptation, and planning: is citizen education the ultimate requirement to improve future sustainability and to respond effectively to climate change?

Co-Chairs: Jan Erling Klausen and Efraim Ben Zadok

Track 2): Knowledge and technology in urban development

How are cities harnessing knowledge and technology to increase the quality of life for their citizens? Whether local economic development in a rapidly changing world?

In today’s knowledge society, how have cities and their leaders harnessed knowledge and technologies to increase the quality of life of their citizens, and what opportunities exist for more innovation?  Are local policy-makers increasingly relying on new evidence and using different forms of knowledge to make choice, or do inertia and short-term political pressures continue to control the decision landscape? What typologies of knowledge can help inform policies?  How have improvements in urban quality of life been documented?  Which cities have embraced new technologies for better urban living and what challenges are they facing? Do local governments that do not embrace knowledge and technology to enhance urban life quality operate at a competitive disadvantage?  What characteristics make some communities better placed to take advantage of such innovations to improve urban life?  Are reforms needed to ensure that knowledge and can be exploited by public policy-makers for the benefits of the majority, not simply the corporate minority? We welcome papers that address the above, but also welcome other proposals. We are also particularly interested in comparative papers which explore how dissimilar structural, institutional, cultural, or other characteristics of urban areas in North American and Europe lead to different processes and outcomes of adopting knowledge and technology.

Co-Chairs: Laurence Carmichael and Kris Wernstedt

Track 3): Community development, migration and integration in urban areas

How are cities coping with rapid population movements – both into and out of cities? What are the implications for housing, urban regeneration and community building of international population shifts?

A globalised world entails considerable scope for migration, both internationally and within national borders. Cities and urban areas are key sites in the migration process, as hosts and sources of migrants. This track explores migration and its impacts on cities in at least the following three ways. First, it will explore the impacts on communities of migration. Within this theme, we welcome contributions exploring gendered and inter-generational aspects of migration, as well as those that explore cultural diversity and social inclusion. Second, the track will explore the responses of urban actors to population shifts caused by migration - for example how authorities, service providers, and community organizations respond to the expansion and contraction of population, and respond to increased social divisions within urban populations. Third, the track will explore the impacts of migration on the physical environment - e.g. on housing, transport, and open spaces. The track welcomes theoretical and empirical papers, comparative contributions, and case study approaches.

Co-Chairs: David Sweeting and Gordana Rabrenovic

Track 4): Urban governance and city planning in an international era

Sound city governance and urban planning are critical to urban success. What are the implications of current trends for political and managerial leadership? How should cities position themselves internationally?

Sound city governance and urban planning are critical to urban success. What are the implications of current trends for political and managerial leadership? What institutional and planning arrangements are possible in a changing context of political decentralisation, multiple actors, both public and private, and sprawling cities? What forms of public participation can be developed and how can the voices of both new and old urban populations be heard? What sorts of cross-sector partnerships can be more effective for planning implementation? What lessons can be learned through European-North American comparisons? What particular challenges and practices do problems that cross borders, such as climate change, pose for planning?  Are specific planning arrangements needed to complement those provided by soft forms of collaborative planning?

Co-Chairs: Inés Sŕnchez de Madariaga and Mara Sidney

Track 5): Architecture, design and planning of the public realm

The quality of architecture, urban design and urban planning affects the quality of life in cities. What innovations are taking place in urban design and planning at street level? How are citizens being involved in those efforts? How does urban theory inform those efforts? Are cities redesigning themselves to cope with new challenges relating to public safety, social equity, efficiency and overall quality of life within the context of urban competitiveness? Or must it be seen as an designing out of social problems within inner cities?

Co-Chairs: Jens Dangschat and Bill Rohe