40th Anniversary IMCL will focus on "changing the operating system for growth" at a critical time for livable cities and towns

Partners, researchers and practitioners will bring the latest research and action on code reform, transportation design, financial incentives and barriers, legislative and policy tools, livable design practice, and other hands-on urban reforms, as the world increasingly demands a new generation of better-quality cities, towns and suburbs

ABOVE: Devastated by bombing during WWII, and then rebuilt by the East German government in a widely disliked character, Potsdam is being transformed by reconstruction today. Photos provided by Bart Urban, speaker at IMCL.

POTSDAM, GERMANY - In less than two months, the 62nd International Making Cities Livable (IMCL) conference will convene here to examine the latest tools and strategies for a new generation of more resilient, more ecological, more livable cities, towns and suburbs.

This comes at a turbulent time for cities, and for global history. We seek not just healthier places for people and planet, but ways to find effective consensus on building a better world. All people are united in their desire to live in a beautiful, functional, prosperous neighborhood and town -- and that literal "common ground" offers an important opportunity to heal divisions, and forge pragmatic consensus on our shared challenges.

The conference recognizes that there are many obsolete technical, legal and financial requirements that still shape and profoundly limit what can be done to improve cities and towns -- what we might think of as a kind of global "operating system for growth." It consists of all the zoning codes, design codes, traffic standards, technical regulations, legal restrictions, financial requirements, incentives and disincentives, hidden subsidies and penalties, design models and images, and all the other elements that, taken together, still determine what can be built and where.

That's why reforms of these obsolete codes, regulations, laws, standards, models, and all the rest, are so urgent -- and why we need to learn from the examples that have made the most progress, and share and adapt their tools and strategies.

Above: We are still building a generation of high resource-consumption, high-emissions, fragmented -- and just plain ugly -- places, based upon an outmoded and failing set of ideas from early in the 20th century. Inspiring examples of reform show us what can be done -- but we recognize the work ahead to bring them to scale.

The conference will focus on bridging the gap from understanding to ACTION – sharing the tools and strategies needed to effect a transition to more ecological ways of building and settling, in the fullest sense of the word.

As we do every year, we will examine our host venue (Potsdam this year) and its in-depth lessons, as well as other inspiring examples of progress in livable settlements. We will seek to understand how those lessons can translate into effective action in other parts of the world, and how conference attendees can play a key role in making that happen.

Some inspiring examples of livable, healthy cities and towns, new and old. We chose to discard these models of development in favor of mechanized autopia, and we can now choose -- if we want -- to re-engage them. But we need the tools and strategies.

Potsdam is a beautiful venue, and a remarkable case study -- devastated during World War II, it was rebuilt under the East German government in a character that few have felt was satisfactory. The city is now assessing the value of its own heritage, and the value of exploiting the "collective intelligence" for contemporary challenges, including the challenges of health, well-being, economic opportunity, ecology, and quality of life for all.

The IMCL is partnering with a number of key institutions and agencies for this conference, including UN-Habitat, The King's Foundation, the International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture, and Urbanism (INTBAU), and the Congress for the New Urbanism.

Innovative researchers will present new findings on urban and environmental issues from leading global universities amd research centers including The University of Cambridge, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, EURAC Research, The University of Notre Dame, The University of Texas, The Technion, and others. A partial listing of some of the over 60 speakers:

Potsdam is not without its challenges -- as with any city today. We will hear from local participants in its successes and struggles, and how they actually "moved the needle" to drive change. We will share many of the most effective tools and strategies available today, including walkability interventions, pattern languages, planning tools, collaborative design practices, and many more.

Potsdam is easily accessible from the Berlin airport, and also easily accessible by train from Europe and the UK. There are excellent hotel options in the area of the conference, the MAXX Hotel Sanssouci. The venue is just off Luisenplatz Square, at the gateway of the spectacular Sanssouci Park. (We will have walking tours of the park, the city, and fascinating historic reconstructions.) We look forward to a productive gathering on important topics, in a beautiful locale!

Above: Sights from Potsdam.

For more information about the conference: https://www.imcl.online/potsdam-2025

IMCL Potsdam Announces Friday Evening Discussion Dinner at the Historic Mill Restaurant, and Other Evening Activities

Attendees are encouraged to sign up for the ticketed dinner and to select their menu items now; tickets for tours will be available soon

ABOVE: Restaurant Zur Historischen Mühle, or "The Historic Mill Restaurant". Photo: Restaurant Zur Historischen Mühle

POTSDAM, GERMANY - The 62nd International Making Cities Livable (IMCL) conference will

include a discussion dinner and awards ceremony at the Historic Mill (Zur Historischen Mühle) restaurant in beautiful Sanssouci Park, a 15-minute walk from our conference venue at the MAXX Hotel Sanssouci.

The evening will include dinner and drinks, and an awards ceremony and discussion of conference topics. Conference attendees can select their preferred entrees from meat, fish or vegetarian menu items. The starter course will be a Farmer’s Salad with sheep’s milk panna cotta, assorted tomatoes, cucumber relish, candied olives, and onion. Dessert will be Black Forest cherry dessert. Drinks including red and white wine, juice and water will be offered.

ABOVE: The restaurant's Palmenhaus, where we will hold our discussion and awards dinner

The dinner is optional, and tickets are

available for attendees as well as one guest each ($85.00 per person) on the conference website, here. Guests may want to stroll through the stunning Sanssouci Park on the way to or from the restaurant. The historic mill referenced in the restaurant's name is across the street, and other beautiful structures are also nearby (image below).

ABOVE: The Historic Mill, adjacent to the restaurant. Photo: Public Domain.

On Thursday evening, we will have a walking tour to the beautiful Alter Markt square, newly rebuilt after devastating World War II bombing, and also replacing some modernist buildings of the East German era that were felt to be unattractive and unworthy of this historic space. The tour will be led by Thomas Albrecht, one of the architects of the restoration and regeneration in Potsdam and elsewhere.

ABOVE: The beautiful Alter Markt area in winter, when the IMCL team visited to prepare for the conference.

One of the themes of the conference is what we can learn from and benefit from historic structures -- not only the "hardware" of rebuilt or restored buildings, but also the "software" of their successful patterns and characteristics. It is a thesis of the Lennard Institute that these structures embody important resources for meeting our urban challenges today, notably the challenge of making cities livable.

On Wednesday, the 15th of October, the conference will begin with a walking tour of Sanssouci Park starting at the MAXX Hotel at 2 PM. The conference will proceed to an opening reception at 5PM at the beautiful Friedenskirche, followed by refreshments and remarks in the MAXX Hotel garden.

On Saturday, the 18th of October, the conference will close with a reception at the MAXX hotel at 5:30 PM. On Sunday, the 19th of October, a tour will be offered of Potsdam, beginning at 9AM at the MAXX Hotel, and ending at 3PM. Tickets will be available on the conference website for both the Wednesday and Sunday tour, as well as the Friday discussion dinner.

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For more information about the IMCL conference, including topics, venue and travel information, please visit the conference web page here.

The Housing Crisis Is Not About The Price of Buildings. It's About the Price of the Dirt Beneath Them.

A discussion post for the 62nd International Making Cities Livable conference in Potsdam, Germany, October 15-19, 2025

ABOVE: In spite of tripled housing units from 1960 to 2020 - far outpacing population growth - the city of Vancouver B.C. not only did not reduce housing costs, it saw the highest costs in North America. The lesson is clear: adding supply alone does not lower housing cost.

By Patrick Michael Condon

James Taylor Chair in Landscape and Liveable Environments

University of British Columbia

For more than four decades, urbanists like myself have tirelessly championed walkable neighborhoods, mixed-use developments, and communities of diverse incomes and backgrounds. We fought for places where children could walk to school, neighbors could meet over shared stoops, and housing didn’t come at the cost of one's mental health or financial ruin. And to some extent, we succeeded. Today, these ideas appear in planning documents across North America, their language absorbed into the bureaucratic vernacular of city halls.

Yet despite this apparent progress, the results have been devastatingly clear: we have failed.

Housing is more expensive, more unequal, and more elusive than at any time in living memory. Middle-income families are increasingly locked out of the communities they serve. The very idea of an affordable home near one's work, friends, or family has slipped out of reach for half the population. And during the crucible of the Covid-19 pandemic, this quiet disaster screamed into full view: how we organize our cities is not just inefficient—it is killing people.

So what went wrong? Is there malice behind our planning decisions? A conspiracy of developers and planners? I prefer a less cynical answer. The problem is not one of intention but of omission. For decades, we have chased shadows—tweaking form, scale, and use—while ignoring the single most powerful force in urban life: the price of land.

Let us call things by their true names. Land rent—the unearned income that accrues to landowners merely by virtue of owning a finite, immobile resource—is the root of our crisis. Cities grow, infrastructure is built, workers labor, businesses invest—and the lion's share of the resulting wealth is quietly siphoned off in the form of escalating land values. Whether you pay it to a landlord or to a bank in the form of a mortgage, land rent is a toll on civilization itself. It produces nothing. It absorbs everything.

This was not always so starkly felt. In the three postwar decades, the malign effects of land rent were temporarily subdued. Mass homebuilding, vast tracts of inexpensive land, and strong labor protections created a fleeting period when even a grocery clerk could support a family and buy a modest home. But in the past forty years—and most acutely in the last twenty—the machinery of rent extraction has roared back to life. In cities blessed with job growth and human talent, prosperity itself has become a poison. Wages rise, businesses thrive—and land prices soar beyond all proportion, consuming every gain.

This is not a paradox. It is exactly what Henry George foresaw more than a century ago: that progress, under conditions of land monopoly, does not lift all boats. It raises the tide and sinks the workers.

Urbanists today face a bitter truth. We have clung to the belief that by simply allowing more housing—by removing zoning barriers and permitting greater density—the market would heal itself. But the market cannot correct a pathology embedded in the price of land. When land is privately monopolized, every act of good—every new transit line, every new job, every permitted duplex—only inflates the underlying value of dirt. The landlord wins. The renter does not.

So what can be done?

The answer, as George taught, lies not in punishing wealth creation, but in reclaiming the unearned increment—the rise in land value that society itself creates. Cities like Vienna have shown that when land rent is captured for the public good—through social ownership, value capture, or public housing on publicly owned land—housing can be both abundant and affordable. It creates room for labor to flourish and capital to invest, without being strangled by parasitic rent.

The tragedy is not that the problem is complex, but that its solution is so boringly simple. We already have the tools. Zoning, development controls, land use planning—these are the legal levers we need. But instead of using them to tame land speculation and demand affordability, we have turned them into scapegoats. We blame “supply constraints” and “NIMBYs” for housing stress, when in truth we are misdiagnosing the disease. The culprit is not the refusal to build more units. It is the mechanical process by which land absorbs every benefit and leaves workers with the bill.

In this light, our housing crisis is not a natural disaster. It is the foreseeable result of public policies that have surrendered to private land interests. And yet the opportunity is immense. By restoring the principle that land should serve the people, not the other way around, we could reverse course. We could build not only more housing, but just housing.

Henry George died trying to teach this truth. That labor and capital are not enemies. Their common adversary is land monopoly—land rent that demands payment without work, innovation, or contribution.

Our cities do not suffer from a lack of buildings. They suffer from a lack of justice in how we allocate and price the land beneath them.

We can fix this. But only if we remember what we have forgotten. And only if we act with the moral clarity this moment demands. Our children—and their cities—are counting on us.

Professor Patrick M. Condon

James Taylor Chair in Landscape and Liveable Environments

ABOVE: Patrick Condon at the 61st International Making Cities Livable in 2024.

New book on housing equity https://www.ubcpress.ca/broken-city

Current initiative: https://designinganddemocracy.blogspot.com/

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More information on the 62nd International Making Cities Livable conference: https://www.imcl.online/potsdam-2025