IMCL Executive Director and venue hosts meet to make final preparations for a memorable conference in a beautiful venue
Our executive director, Michael Mehaffy, just returned from the venue of the conference, and his video report is above.
NEWPORT, RI, January 15, 2024: IMCL Executive Director Michael Mehaffy met last week with representatives of Fairfax and Sammons Architects to tour the venue, check hotel options, meet with vendors, and make other preparations, for the 60th International Making Cities Livable (IMCL) conference taking place here, April 26-28, 2024. The IMCL conferences bring together researchers, policy makers, practitioners, and other urban stakeholders from across borders to share new findings and strategies on effective solutions to current urban challenges.
The theme of the conference is "Making Cities Livable: Research Into Communication, and ACTION." A key focus will be on the tools and strategies to overcome the legacy of exclusionary planning and zoning, and the related damage of fragmented, auto-centric planning. We will explore effective ways to build, protect and enhance thriving public spaces, and the adjacent private spaces and uses that afford well-being, social interaction, quality of life, exercise, human and planetary health, and economic opportunity, for ALL the residents of cities, towns and suburbs.
Partners in the conference will include The King's Foundation (formerly The Prince's Foundation), UN-Habitat, the Congress for the New Urbanism, the International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture and Urbanism (INTBAU), The Seaside Institute, HealthBridge Canada, and others to be announced.
Our venue this year is the beautiful and historic city of Newport, Rhode Island, USA. The city, founded in 1639, has a fascinating and complex history of tolerance as well as exclusion. It is a world sailing capital, and home to the famed Newport Jazz Festival, as well as a number of grand old estates that now house institutional events. One of these is Bois Doré, built in 1927 and made available as our venue thanks to the generous sponsorship of Fairfax and Sammons Architects.
The IMCL is a unique international peer-to-peer gathering of civic leaders, professionals and scholars dedicated to transitioning to a more livable, humane and ecological generation of cities, towns and suburbs. Once again, we will gather in an instructive and inspiring locale, to share the latest research and case studies on effective new tools and strategies to meet the new generation of urban challenges.
Evaluations from attendees of our previous conference were overwhelmingly positive, and comments included "“Superb organization,” “Wonderful conference,” “My favorite IMCL yet,” “Wonderful event,” “Terrific conference,” “Amazing conference!,” “Fantastic conference!,,” “Some of the best three days ever!,” “Outstanding conference,” “Lots of cheers,” “Terrific conference,” and “A triumph.”
For more information or to submit an abstract for presentation, visit our conference page at https://www.imcl.online/2024-newport.