Philipp Rode, Executive Director of LSE Cities, will be a featured speaker at the NEXT Design Perspectives conference in Milan on 29 October.

The conference, held at the Gucci Hub, is an exploration of the future of creativity and design. Rode will take part in a discussion on the theme ‘Mobility: the road ahead’, which will address the rise of new mobilities amidst the urgent need to tackle climate change. He also touched on the topic in Corriere, Italy’s most-read newspaper, ahead of the conference.

Along with NEXT Design Perspectives curator and director of the Design Museum of London, Deyan Sudjic, Rode also took part in a conversation on White City Place’s Thought Starters podcast. The episode, titled ‘How we’ll be getting around’, is a discussion between Rode and Sudjic on mobility at the intersection of rapid urbanisation and climate change.

Click here for more information on the NEXT Design Perspectives conference. 
Click here listen to the Thought Leaders podcast.

LSE Cities Executive Director Philipp Rode is featured in a new in-depth investigative series on urban humans and the future of cities.

Urban Humans, a multi-media project launched on 16 October 2019, investigates how far cities can push their limits in the face of unprecedented urban growth and worsening climate change.

Rode weighs in on space shortage, transportation, social equity and more in the project’s long-form article and videos.

The investigation was published by place, a Thomson Reuters Foundation initiative that explores the complex effects of inadequate land rights.

Click here to read and watch the full Urban Humans project here.

Nuno F. da Cruz, Assistant Professorial Research Fellow at LSE Cities, gave a lecture titled “The Governance of Strategic Planning and Infrastructure” to Addis Ababa University students at the Emerging City Lab in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Wednesday, 16 October 2019.

The lecture explored the bearing that governance has on strategic spatial development and the rollout of key infrastructure projects. It included findings from two Addis Ababa case studies gathered through the LSE Cities Governing Infrastructure Interfaces project, which focuses on transport and sanitation infrastructure in Ethiopia’s two largest cities to investigate the relationship between development goals and the contribution made by new infrastructure.

The Emerging City Lab is hosted by the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development (EiABC) at Addis Ababa University. da Cruz will be sharing the project’s results with Ph.D. and Masters students from the university’s urban and regional planning, urban design, and housing and development programmes.

Click here for more information on the ‘Governing Infrastructure Interfaces’ project.

LSE Cities Policy Fellow Catarina Heeckt will be one of the participants at the C40 World Mayors Summit taking place from 9-12 October in Copenhagen.

This year’s landmark event, operating under the theme ‘The Future We Want‘, will highlight bold climate solutions in Copenhagen and abroad. More than 70 mayors will convene for the event, as well as business leaders, scientists, investors, and youth activists. Keynote speakers include former New York City mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Heeckt will be moderating a session entitled “How do we solve city climate challenges through collaborative innovation?” as part of the Cities & Business Forum on Thursday, 10 October. The forum will explore how leading cities and businesses are taking responsibility in the climate crisis by stepping up their ambition, accelerating action by shifting markets towards the most effective solutions, and exploring new and innovative ways of partnering to create the future we want. The event, co-organised by the C40 City Solutions Platform & Access Cities, will explore different models for the innovative city – business collaboration and how city climate action can be accelerated through effective partnership models. During the session, officials from Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality and the City of Singapore will reflect on their experiences collaborating with businesses to solve pressing sustainability challenges, followed by a panel discussion with representatives from the private sector.

The C40 Mayors Summit will also hold several events showcasing how cities worldwide are building a sustainable, healthier, resilient and more inclusive future through city leadership, affordable housing, tackling air pollution, sustainable food systems, and other solutions.

C40 Cities, a network of 94 of the world’s leading cities representing more than 700 million citizens and a quarter of the global economy, brings together mayors and other city leaders who are committed to ambitious climate action. The C40 Mayors Summit takes place every three years.

Just ahead of the UN Climate Action Summit, a new report titled Climate Emergency, Urban Opportunity was launched by the Coalition for Urban Transitions. This report, a collaborative effort of more than 50 organisations that includes LSE Cities, outlines the immense social and economic benefits of creating compact, connected and clean cities with net-zero emissions, and presents a clear six-part action plan for national governments around the world.

The report clearly illustrates the imperative for national governments to support the development of clean, connected, and compact cities to drive economic prosperity and address the global climate emergency. The report shows that cutting 90% of emissions in cities is possible using proven technologies and would generate returns worth almost US$24 trillion by 2050 based on direct cost savings alone. But that city governments cannot drive a zero-carbon transition without the cooperation and support of national governments. Inclusive, zero-carbon cities must therefore be at the heart of countries’ long-term economic & social development planning. The main message of the report is that thriving cities make prosperous countries, and national governments must embrace this transition or risk being left behind.

LSE Cities has been a member of the Coalition for Urban Transitions since its inception, co-leading the workstream on national policy frameworks together with the OECD.

Learn more about our research and the work of the Coalition in the new report.

On Monday 23 September, Philipp Rode will give a presentation on the future of sustainable urban infrastructure at Live Electric: Designing a Low Carbon Future the 2019 IIEA/ESB conference held in Dublin. The conference showcases how consumer engagement with emerging technologies will lead to a large-scale, cross-sectoral transformation.