Conference will gather "doers" with leading researchers, city officials and NGO heads to exchange the latest research at a critical moment for cities; Early Bird registration and Student Call for Abstracts ends Saturday, Aug. 31st
ABOVE: Partial listing of the rich roster of speakers scheduled for the 61st International Making Cities Livable (IMCL) conference, on "The Ecology of Place: Learning from Nature, Culture and History." (More speakers will be announced.)
CORTONA, ITALY - Partners and participants in the 61st International Making Cities Livable (IMCL) conference will represent internationally leading NGO heads, researchers, practitioners, city officials, and implementers of landmark projects for livable cities. The conference, titled "The Ecology of Place: Learning from Nature, Culture, and History," will focus on critical challenges including urban resilience, climate-friendly planning, urban health and well-being, and sustainable urbanism.
Among the participants will be a number of leaders in the US-based New Urbanism movement. Robert Davis, Town Founder of the early and iconic Seaside, Florida, will speak on the lessons of that seminal 40-year project. He and his wife Daryl Davis founded Seaside Institute, whose mission is "inspiring livable communities" (a partner in the IMCL conference). The Institute’s three core tenets are "Sustainability, Connectivity, Adaptability—working together to expand the lessons of New Urbanism and develop new strategies for a rapidly changing world."
Seaside Institute will also conduct a tour of Pienza, Italy, following the conference, led by University of Notre Dame Professor David Mayernik as well as Robert and Daryl Davis.
Other leaders of landmark projects in walkable, mixed-use, ecological developments will share their implementation lessons. Sara Bega, Town Architect of Las Catalinas, Costa Rica, will describe the detailed process of building a successful ecological development centered on healthy living and social cohesion. Liz Moule of Moule & Polyzoides will share lessons of Italian hill towns, and how they were applied to a number of iconic projects by their firm, including the seminal ecological model of Civano, Arizona. Jim Brainard, who served for 28 years as mayor of Carmel, Indiana, and Henry Mestetsky, Director of Redevelopment for the City, will describe the financial tools and strategies they used successfully, including tax increment finance, to achieve an instructive exemplar of suburban retrofit.
Victor Dover of Dover, Kohl & Partners will discuss new approaches to walkable and livable street design, and how these new approaches have been applied in new developments by their firm in the USA. Richard Erganian, who worked closely with A Pattern Language author Christopher Alexander on the popular Vineyard farmer's market project in Fresno, California, will be on hand to share lessons of Alexander's incremental development process and its real-world challenges.
Other participants will describe inspiring new projects from around the world. Robert Krasser of The Pattern Institute, based in Salzburg, Austria, will describe a new bicycle pattern language developed for Zanzibar, Africa. Ben Bolgar of The King's Foundation will discuss rapidly growing parts of Africa and other Commonwealth countries, and the tools the Foundation has developed with its international partners. Marjo Uotila will discuss groundbreaking new projects in Scandinavia, as well as other projects by chapters of the International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture and Urbanism (INTBAU), a sister charity of The King's Foundation, with 37 chapters spanning every continent around the world.
Ayanda Roji of the City of Johannesburg and the Center on African Public Spaces will discuss pioneering work to improve public spaces in Africa and around the world. Representatives of the placemaking movement will speak on their global movement and its progress. Carmelo Troccoli, Director General of the World Farmers Markets Coalition, will discuss the burgeoning movement to build farmers' markets around the world, end food deserts, provide viable ways of life for rural economies, and improve food quality, food security, and public health. Laura Petrella, Head of Planning, Finance and Economy for UN-Habitat, will describe their recent work to implement the Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda, and the upcoming World Urban Forum in Cairo, Egypt.
Representatives of the City of Cortona, our gracious hosts, will describe their work to diversity the local economy in the wake of the COVID pandemic, and a declining resident population that is all too common in Italian towns -- and in rural towns around the world. A movement to provide for "left-behind citizens" is growing around the world -- and in an age of growing threats to urban well-being, and growing resentment translating into political movements, the issue could not be more important.
These and many other city leaders will share their lessons in a unique peer-to-peer gathering of international, interdisciplinary scholars, practitioners, officials and NGO heads. The IMCL conferences were begun in 1985 by a Viennese medical sociologist and a British architectural scholar. Henry and Suzanne Lennard were passionate about sharing the best international lessons to create a new generation of livable, durable, ecological cities, towns and suburbs.
Now, at a time of rising threats to urban and planetary well-being, the agenda of effective urban reform could not be more urgent. Please join us for an inspiring exploration of critical urban issues, in an instructive and beautiful locale.
Please also help spread the word that Early Bird registration ends August 31st, and a special Student Call for Abstracts also runs through August 31st. Student presenters, who can present posters of their work, are invited to submit a no-obligation abstract at this link: https://www.imcl.online/cfa-cortona
More information about the conference is available here: https://www.imcl.online/2024-cortona. Thanks to all our conference partners, sponsors and participating organizations (below and to be announced). We hope you'll join us!
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