Philipp Rode, Executive Director of LSE Cities, spoke on Accessibility in Cities: Transport and Urban Form on  22 March 2018 at the CIX BM30 Workshop in Bilbao. Rode will draw insights from the Centre’s ongoing research into the link between urban form and transport infrastructure, as well as his recently published book, Governing Compact Cities: How to Connect Planning, Design and Transport, exploring how governance impacts this topic.

The deadline to apply to the Urban Age Scholarships, which offers fee support of up to £15,000 to Executive MSc in Cities applicants working in the public, private and third sectors, has been extended to 24 April 2018. The scheme is funded through the Urban Age Programme, a joint initiative between LSE Cities and the Alfred Herrhausen Gesellschaft. The Executive MSc in Cities is an 18-month part-time programme for urban professionals who want to understand and deliver change in their cities.

Bloomberg Scholarships for Public Service, which offer fee support to Executive MSc in Cities applicants, are now available. The scheme is open to applicants currently employed in the public sector with awards of up to £32,376 towards the cost of 2018/19 tuition. The deadline to apply is 24 April 2018. Previous winners of the scholarships, funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, include Navin Rai, who runs national flagship programmes in the Urban Development & Housing Department of the Indian State of Sikkim and Yao Wen-Chih, who has been a member of Taiwan’s parliament since 2012. The Executive MSc in Cities is an 18-month part-time programme for urban professionals who want to understand and deliver change in their cities.

Philipp Rode, Executive Director of LSE Cities and Urban Age, and Nuno da Cruz, Assistant Professorial Research Fellow at LSE Cities, have authored a new journal article. Governing urban accessibility: moving beyond transport and mobility, published in Applied Mobilities, uses empirical insights from a global survey and the case-study cities of London, NYC and Berlin to explores the institutional capacities of shifting from governing urban transport to urban accessibility. The findings suggest that cities may be better equipped to integrate shared mobility and consider mobility as a service than to pursue more wide-ranging metropolitan accessibility policies.

Four finalists have been announced for the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize for Emerging Architecture. They include projects in Mexico, Brazil and the United States looking at designing buildings for children, the future and reclaiming public space. Children Village (Aleph Zero + Rosenbaum), an education facility designed for children in remote Formoso do Araguaia, has increased the children’s sense of belonging, responsibility for the environment and overall academic performance, while María Montessori School Mazatlan (EPArguitectos + Estudio Macias Peredo) responds not only to a harsh climate, but also the changing needs of children at different stages of learning. Common Unity (Rozana Montiel) reclaims privatised spaces for public use in one of Mexico City’s large housing complexes to improve social interaction. Embodied Computation Lab (David Benjamin) involves a facility for interdisciplinary research on robotics, sensors, and everywhere that computers meet the physical world in a building designed to evolve over time, with components and systems that can be swapped and upgraded. Ricky Burdett, Director of LSE Cities and Urban Age was the Jury Chair.

Nuno da Cruz, Assistant Professorial Research Fellow at LSE Cities, gave a guest lecture at The Hague Academy for Local Governance on 9 March 2018. The lecture was delivered in the context of the Matra Rule of Law Training Programme and focused on transparency and accountability in local governance. Da Cruz contributes to the Centre’s research into Urban Governance.

“The Quito Papers and the New Urban Agenda” is a multifaceted assembly of perspectives identifying new insights on contemporary urbanisation by Richard Sennett, Professor of Humanities, NYU, Professor of Sociology, LSE; Ricky Burdett, Professor of Urban Studies at LSE and Director of LSE Cities and the Urban Age, Saskia Sassen, Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia University, and Joan Clos (2010-2017), Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat). The text investigates various topics including architecture, planning and urban design, to land ownership and regulation, water management and environmental  philosophy. Routledge is offering 20% discount when buying via their website (enter the code FLR40 at checkout).