A new Lancet Series on Urban design, transport, and health has launched. This three-part series explores how integrated multisector city planning, including urban design and transport planning, can be used as an important and currently underused force for health and wellbeing within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals in both high-income countries and low-income and middle-income countries. Paper 3, Use of science to guide city planning policy and practice: how to achieve healthy and sustainable future cities includes contributions from Ricky Burdett and Peter Griffiths. Another of the authors, Billie Giles-Corti, will be presenting the paper at LSE on 6 October 2016.

Philipp Rode is speaking today at the Victoria and Albert Museum on the future of urban living in a post-growth era. The panel discussion, as part of the London Design Festival’s Future/Liveable Cities day programme, will be hosted by Oke Hauser, Creative Lead Architect and Project Manager of MINI LIVING. It will take the form of an interdisciplinary debate addressing urban living challenges, current trends, and possible solutions with a focus on densification and reactions to these tendencies in the housing sector.

The new Executive MSc in Cities has commenced in London, with twenty-three students beginning the first week of intense training sessions spread over 12 months. The programme, which is led by Professor Ricky Burdett, Executive Director Philipp Rode, Professor Tony Travers and Dr Savvas Verdis, aims to provide a unique experience of urban governance, design, transport, finance and economic development in global cities with input from LSE faculty and a network of visiting global fellows.

Executive MSc students include planners, architects, entrepreneurs and policymakers, some of whom have received support from the Urban Age Scholarship, made possible through the Urban Age Programme, a joint initiative between LSE Cities and the Alfred Herrhausen Gesellschaft. Others have been assisted by the Bloomberg Scholarship for Public Service.

Session One of the Executive MSc in Cities runs from September 12-16, before Session Two begins on December 12. For more information, visit the programme’s dedicated website.

A BBC Inside Out ‘Brexit Special’ will tonight feature research from the super-diverse streets project at LSE Cities. The BBC, drawing from the project, spoke to workers on Narborough Road in Leicester and found at least a dozen different languages. The programme will discuss the multiculturalism of the street in the context of the UK referendum on membership of the European Union, highlighting the perspectives of residents and small business owners.  It will air at 19:30 BST on BBC One in the East Midlands or BBC iPlayer.

In a recent event organised by Theatrum Mundi, artist Tania Bruguera was in conversation with urban sociologist Saskia Sassen to reflect upon Bruguera’s ongoing research project Immigrant Movement International in the context of her residency at the South London Gallery. The discussion of IMI, which aims to engage different communities in order to examine growing concerns about the political representation and conditions facing immigrants, also inspired an article by Will Jennings in The Quietus addressing “the immigrant, their acceptance and role in society and how their privileged position can be a force for good, change and urban strength.” The podcast of Theatrum Mundi’s event can be found here.

Ricky Burdett, director of LSE Cities and the Urban Age Programme, spoke to BBC Radio 4 on London’s resilience after the Great Fire 350 years ago. In Cities from the Ashes, Burdett argues that the most attractive cities are messy and poorly planned, allowing for resilience and adaptability to unforeseen circumstances, including disasters.