A preview to the Quito Papers will be launched this evening to coincide with a film providing background to the document followed by a panel discussion with the papers’ authors. Towards an Open City: The Quito Papers and the New Urban Agenda includes contributions from Joan Clos, Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of UN-Habitat; Ricky Burdett, Professor of Urban Studies at LSE and the director of LSE Cities and the Urban Age; Saskia Sassen, Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia University; and Richard Sennett, Professor of Humanities, New York University, Professor of Sociology, LSE. In October 2016, the thinking behind the Quito Papers was outlined at Habitat III by the authors in a talk entitled: Designing the Urban Age.

This evening, Theatrum Mundi will launch the “Quito Papers: towards an open city” film in London. With the support of the Kaifeng Foundation and in partnership with UN Habitat, NYU and LSE Cities, the film will be followed by a panel discussion with the papers’ authors: Ricky Burdett, Saskia Sassen, and Richard Sennett chaired by Wendy Pullan, Professor of Architecture and Urban Studies and Head of the Department of Architecture at the University of Cambridge.

Philipp Rode, Executive Director of LSE Cities, spoke today at the The New Economy conference in Porto. The conference hosted the 9^th ceremony of the Green Project Awards. Philipp spoke on “Going green – how cities are leading the next economy” before joining a panel discussion on “Renewable energies and sustainable cities”. Going Green: How cities are leading the next economy is the concluding report of LSE Cities’ major global survey of 90 city governments and a case study analysis of innovative green strategies in eight cities.

John Bingham-Hall, Researcher with Theatrum Mundi, has published a new article in the January/February 2017 issue of the journal Architectural Design. The article, Imagined Community and Networked Hyperlocal Publics, reflects on the nature of place, and highlights the phatic properties of online platforms such as Southeast London’s Brockley Central blog that seek to reinforce local identity. It draws on the work of a range of philosophers, sociologists and theorists including Hannah Arendt, Jurgen Habermas, Keith Hampton and Barry Wellman. The full article is available here.

On January 30, Theatrum Mundi Director, Adam Kaasa, will be speaking about the 3-year ‘Designing Politics’ project as part of a panel put together by the Museum of Architecture (MoA) on ‘The Architecture of Citizenship.’ The ‘Designing Politics’ project has featured an annual ideas challenge addressing the potentials and the limits of design in addressing critical questions about the politics of urban culture. Along with Dr. Kaasa’s presentation, the MoA’s event will include contributions by Asif Khan, Elsie Owusu OBE and Maria S. Giudici. More information is available here. 

Peter Griffiths, Managing Editor of LSE Cities, has contributed a chapter to the new Brookings Institution report: Foresight Africa: Top priorities for the continent in 2017. Chapter 4 addresses Africa’s approach to the New Urban Agenda emerging from the Habitat III conference in Quito, Ecuador, in October 2016. It outlines possibilities for future urbanisation across the continent, and the role of the African Union in leading, rather than following on global policy initiatives. The chapter can be accessed here.

LSE Cities research has been featured in the new book Disrupting Mobility: Impacts of Sharing Economy and Innovative Transportation on Cities, edited by Gereon Meyer and Susan Shaheen. The book is based on the 2015 Disrupting Mobility Summit at the MIT Media Lab, which investigated the role of rapidly changing transport technologies in enabling more sustainable global futures. The chapter Accessibility in Cities: Transport and Urban Form, draws on LSE Cities’ research on cities, the environment and climate change, and is authored by LSE Cities Executive Director Philipp Rode, Principal Research Fellow Graham Floater, and others.

Ricky Burdett, Director of LSE Cities and Urban Age, has been awarded a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) as part of the New Year’s Honours List for 2017. The Honours List recognises people who have made achievements in public life and committed themselves to serving and helping Britain. Professor Burdett’s CBE is for services to urban planning and design. The full list of honourees from the LSE is available here.