Monthly Archives: July 2015

New LSE Cities research project on Resource Urbanisms

28 July 2015

Resource Urbanisms: Natural resources, urban form and infrastructure in the case of Asia’s diverging city models’ is a new two-year LSE Cities research project co-funded by LSE Kuwait Programme/LSE Middle East Centre to examine multiple aspects of how natural resources, urban form and infrastructure affect each other and potentially lead to the establishment of divergent forms of urbanism.

The research will include the multi-scale temporal analysis of different types and changes of urban development in Kuwait and Abu Dhabi (a second Middle East comparator case) and two contrasting city types in East Asia, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Access the research project page here.

Ricky Burdett participated in a debate on The Possible City at The Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona

21 July 2015

On 2 and 3 July, The Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona hosted a debate on ‘The Possible City’, which  suggested the need to re-imagine what kind of city would be possible given the political, economic and social conditions in each specific location.

Ricky Burdett took part in an open session on ‘The possible city: from urban planning to democracy’ and the video recording of the session is available here.

Mellon Research Fellow Naomi Roux presents on landscapes of memory in South End, Port Elizabeth, South Africa

17 July 2015

Naomi Roux, current Mellon Research Fellow at LSE Cities, is giving a presentation on ‘Double vision and suspended conversations: landscapes of memory in South End, Port Elizabeth’ at the Southbank Centre on Friday 17 July. The presentation forms part of a symposium on ‘Sequins, Self & Struggle: Performing and Archiving Sex, Place and Class in Cape Town Pageants’ organised by the African in Words blog.

Register here to attend.

 

Launch of Urban Governance Survey by LSE Cities, UN Habitat and UCLG Committee on Decentralisation and Local Governance

14 July 2015

The New Urban Governance project at LSE Cities, working in partnership with UN Habitat and the UCLG Committee on Decentralisation and Local Governance, has launched a new website to present the first round of results from the Urban Governance Survey. The survey attempts to address a general lack of data about how cities are governed around the world and the new online platform explores new ways of communicating and ‘mapping’ urban governance.

We are now inviting local government officials to participate in the second round of the survey. If you would like your city to be included, please complete our survey. We are very keen to feature as many cities as possible in this analysis and include the results on our new website.

The Urban Governance Survey is part of the larger LSE Cities New Urban Governance research and engagement project, co-funded by the MacArthur Foundation to examine multiple aspects of municipal planning, management, and governance.

 

Review of 2015 LSE Cities Executive Summer School

10 July 2015

Last week, LSE Cities participated in the LSE Executive Summer School Programme with the course ‘London and Global Cities: Governance, Planning and Design’. Now in its second year, the course once again attracted an incredibly diverse cohort of early-to-mid career professionals from both the public and private sector. Students included the Mayor of a mid-sized town in Kazakhstan, a vice president for a major American philanthropic foundation, a senior consultant to the Government of Dubai, a communications executive from Shell, a Director of Resources for the European Commission, the Head of Urban Planning of the City of Rotterdam, and the Chairperson of a Board for Responsible Tourism in Turkey. In total, we welcomed 18 senior executive and mid-career participants from 15 countries and four continents, providing for a week of lively discussion and exchange.

‘London and Global Cities: Governance, Planning and Design’ is designed to be an intensive five-day exploration and analysis of how London is governed and managed, drawing parallels with other major cities. Participants spent a week understanding the ‘London model’ of governance and urban development that has helped to transform the city over the last 30 years.

Led by Ricky Burdett, Tony Travers, Philipp Rode and Savvas Verdis, the course drew on LSE Cities and LSE London’s research work. It explored the longer-term development of London (in the context of other global cities) so as to provide students with an understanding of the key challenges facing both mature and rapidly-developing metropolitan areas. Key themes included governance, planning and design, infrastructure, transport, housing, inequality and economic competitiveness.

All participants attended classes given by the core teaching group and guest lectures by key members of London’s political, development, transport and housing sectors. Guest speakers this year were Tessa Jowell, Professor of Practice at the LSE; Isabel Dedring, London’s Deputy Mayor for Transport; Greg Clark, City Advisor; Rick Robinson, IT Director at Amey; and Tom Saunders, Senior Researcher at Nesta. In addition, Ricky Burdett led a site visit to King’s Cross which included a presentation by Argent followed by a walking tour of the redevelopment.

The lectures and site visit were complemented by interactive seminars that asked students to work in teams to address key policy challenges such as congestion charging. For the final day of the course, students were briefed on the Royal Docks Redevelopment in East London and again worked in small groups to propose alternative development schemes for the site which they then had the opportunity to present to Dan Bridge, the GLA’s Principal Development Manager for the Royal Docks site.

The course was very well received by the students and will be hosted again next summer.

LSE Cities Suzanne Hall, Julia King and Robin Finlay present at Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity

9 July 2015

Suzanne Hall, Julia King and Robin Finlay give a presentation on ‘Loose infrastructure: civic diversity in Birmingham  and Leicester’ at the The Infrastructures of Diversity: Materiality and Culture in Urban Space workshop on Thursday 9 July. This takes place at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen, Germany.

The presentation  explores how urban migrants expand on an infrastructure of civic diversity, in particular how transactions on the street are developed in spatial, economic and cultural dimension.

Information about the LSE Cities Super-diverse Streets project is available here.

 

LSE Cities Mellon Fellow Naomi Roux speaks at Institute of Modern Languages Research workshop

6 July 2015

LSE Cities Mellon Fellow in Cities and Humanities 2014 – 2015 Naomi Roux will take part in a workshop organised by the Institute of Modern Languages Research on ‘Memories of Future Cities’ on Monday 6 July.

This seed workshop aims to explore a broad range of cultures of memory and futurity constructed around the city and Naomi will give a presentation on ‘Memory and Urban Transformation in the South African City’.

Ricky Burdett participates in Centre for London event on 2025 Expo

3 July 2015

Director of LSE Cities Ricky Burdett will take part in the Centre for London ‘Expo 2025: Should London bid?’ event on Monday 6 July from 18.30 – 20.00. The chaired discussion will explore both the business opportunities and the challenges that the 2025 Expo presents.

The event is free to attend and open to all, with registration here in advance essential.

Airports Commission releases final report

1 July 2015

The Airports Commission, of which Ricky Burdett at LSE Cities has been a member since 2012, today launched its final report recommending a third runway at Heathrow Airport.

See here for details of the final report.