Kick-Off Event: The Challenge of Urban Futures
The Online-Event brought together researchers in a round-table format sharing their complementary and interdisciplinary expertise on the multifarious facets of urban studies, focussing on the challenges of urban futures. In the round-table webinar, we specifically focussed on three thematic areas: Environment and Sustainability, Urban Planning and Governance, and Society and Culture. Invited scholars were: Isabelle Anguelovski (Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona), Simin Davoudi (University of Newcastle, UK) and John Mollenkopf (Cuny Graduate Center, New York). The panelists addressed the challenges to urban futures from their disciplinary point of view.
Isabelle Anguelovski:
"The question that underpins our work is how can green cities be truly just and emancipatory for all rather than a driver of new social and racial injustices."
Simin Davoudi:
"We can't talk about urban futures without asking whose future and who gets to decide. A key challenge for urban futures is social and spatial injustices."
John Mollenkopf:
"The central Challenge is to break down the chasm between political scientist who study states and power (why power is carried out the way it is) but very often don’t have much of an urban or spatial focus and urban study scholars who see the visible impact of inequalities that are reinforced by public policies, but quite often don’t go to the details of the state mechanism that are creating those policies."