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Shoppers and pedestrians at the street market in Sham Shui Po

LSE Cities – highlights from 2011

Happy 2012 from all at LSE Cities!

As we move into London’s Olympic year, there is a lot to come from LSE Cities. To start, in February we host a roundtable with the World Bank on their new Urbanization Knowledge platform.

2012 also sees the US$100,000 Deutsche Bank Urban Age Award travel to Cape Town, South Africa to recognise the partnerships that exist between citizens, government, business people and NGO’s that have contributed towards improving the quality of life in cities.

And this December, the Urban Age Conference returns to London with a focus on the ‘Electric City’: a critical reflection of urbanising smart, green technology. Keep up to date on details of new events, research and publications on Facebook and Twitter, or our Newsletter.

With the new year off to a start we wanted to look back on the research, publications, public engagement, and teaching at LSE Cities in 2011.

Our Top 11 for 2011

  1. Urban Age Hong Kong ‘Cities, health and well-being’
    In November, some 200 academics, policy-makers, practitioners and activists grappled with the complex and compelling issues that come together in urban health and well-being, joined by nearly 1000 people watching a live stream online.
    Visit the conference website to watch all talks – including a new YouTube playlist, or view the programme for presentations, conference publication, including new research from LSE Cities and photos (Hong Kong | Day one | Day two).
  2. Publications: Living in the Endless City
    In June, LSE Cities’ Urban Age project launched its second book, Living in the Endless City, focussing on over three years of research in Mumbai, São Paulo and Istanbul. It expands the visual data research and includes 38 brand new essay contributions from leading thinkers around the world. 2011 also saw Andrea Colantonio launch his new book Urban Regeneration and Social Sustainability and Suzanne Hall’s article ‘High street adaptations’ in Environment and Planning A.
  3. Social Media
    This year marked a significant shift in our online presence. For the first time, the Urban Age conference was webcast live and viewed by nearly 1,000 people. With more than 400 followers on Twitter and nearly 1,100 fans on Facebook, we are extending a conversation about cities from London to colleagues and publics around the world, and our conference and lecture videos on YouTube are totalling close to 100,000 views.
  4. Public Lectures
    Watch the videos of the outstanding speakers and thinkers on urban issues, hosted by LSE Cities in 2011: Enrique Peñalosa on Politics, Power, Cities, Sharon Zukin on The Naked City, Edgar Pieterse on African Urbanism, Mohsen Mostafavi on Ecological Urbanism, Bruce Katz with Ricky Burdett on A Vision for the Next Urban Economy, Joan Clos on Cities and Climate Change, Gerald Frug on The Architecture of Governance, and Alfredo Brillembourg on The Architecture of Social Investment.
  5. LSE Cities Programme
    ‘High Street 2012’, the stretch of road running from Aldgate to Stratford, was the basis for the latest MSc City Design and Social Science publication City Street. In March 2011 the studio went to Moscow meeting local experts and focussing on the severe traffic problems which affect mobility and liveability in the city. Karl Baker, joint recipient with Bettina Andrag of the Cities Prize for Academic Achievement 2011, has now joined LSE Cities as a researcher on the Green Cities project. See the Cities alumni and careers for more on what our graduates are doing.
  6. UNEP Green Economy report
    As coordinating author on the Cities and Buildings chapters of Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication, a new report from the United Nations Environment Programme, LSE Cities challenged the myth of a trade-off between environmental investments and economic growth, and makes central the roles of cities in an emerging ‘green’ economy.
  7. Randstad: Tale of two regions
    Collaborative research between LSE Cities, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and the Directorate General for National Spatial Planning of the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment compared London and the Randstad suggesting that regional narratives are vital for mobilizing action and creating metropolitan identities.
  8. ‘Urbanized’ UK premiere
    We played host to the UK premiere of Gary Hustwit’s documentary on cities, featuring LSE Cities Director Ricky Burdett. The screening was followed by a public discussion with Gary Hustwit, Ricky Burdett, Alejandro Aravena and Richard Sennett.
  9. ‘Design, Technology, Behaviour’ Seminar
    LSE Cities, in partnership with Buro Happold, organised three expert seminars on the themes of ‘Electric mobility’, ‘Smart cities’, and ‘Urban morphology and heat energy demand’.
  10. OPLC Roundtable
    LSE Cities organised a roundtable event for the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC) on 13-14 October on the topic of innovative and sustainable energy and transport. The event brought together 43 experts from academia, local government and industry, including London 2012 Partners, while the discussions helped inform the OPLC of potential opportunities in these areas for the future of the Olympic Park.
  11. Writing Cities 2011
    Watch the opening lecture from the annual PhD student-organised workshop between LSE, MIT and Harvard. The panel discussed the notion of distance when writing about cities. Justin McGuirk chaired the discussion among Gerald Frug, Asher Ghertner, Patrik Schumacher, Richard Sennett, Fran Tonkiss and Lawrence Vale.
 
 
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