URBLOG

Smarter, Stronger Cities: UK Urban Policy Innovations and Lessons for the US

A new report from the Centre for Cities and Washington's Brookings Institution has found that the USA has a lot to learn from Britain's urban renaissance. But while British politicians and officials have always been keen to go on the hunt for policy ideas from the States, US politicians don't always follow suit. US mayors - and the next US administration - should look more closely at British policy ideas, to help American cities compete in the future.

"As the United States chooses its next President, we should do more to export our successful urban policies to the US - especially on sustainable growth. US cities could learn useful lessons from our track record of avoiding excessive sprawl and supporting low-income families." Dermot Finch

See also: Americans migrate back to the cities

Loïc Wacquant in London and Manchester

Loïc Wacquant, author of Urban Outcasts, will be lecturing in London and Manchester at the end of May.

"Drawing on a wealth of original fieldwork, surveys and historical data, Urban Outcasts casts new light on the explosive conjunction of mounting misery and stupendous affluence evident in the cities of advanced and advancing countries throughout the globe."

The lectures will be at the Royal Society of Arts on 28th May and Manchester University on 29th May (details to be posted).

Urban Outcasts was the subject of a special feature of a recent edition of CITY.

SCUPE Congress on Urban Ministry 2008

Advancing God's Reign in Our Cities  CONFERENCE BROCHURE 15-18  April  2008    Chicago

The Congress on Urban Ministry, organised by SCUPE - the Seminary Consortium on Urban Pastoral Education ,  is a biennial event of Christians engaged in and passionate about urban ministry.  This year the Congress will be focusing on Creating Redemptive Communities, Releasing Prophetic Imagination through Story, and Engaging in Justice, Reconciliation and Restoration.

"An unsuccessful city has closed its mind to the future."

Cities on the edge of chaos

Deyan Sudjic, co-editor of Endless City, asks if the city of the future will be a vision of hell or a force for civilised living?
"Cities are made by an extraordinary mixture of do-gooders and bloody-minded obsessives, of cynical political operators and speculators. They are shaped by the unintended consequences of the greedy and the self-interested, the dedicated and the occasional visionary."

"We need more than platitudes" Jonathan Meades reviews Endless City

Slums, resistance and the African working class

Leo Zeilig and Claire Ceruti in IJS responding to Mike Davis' Planet of Slums

“Sub-Saharan Africa…is host to many great slum settlements—but is also the site of a series of major mass strikes. This year started with a general strike in Guinea-Conakry…South Africa and Nigeria, have been hit by major strikes…these struggles…confirm that the organised working class is a powerful social and political actor in Africa”.

Urban studies pioneer dies

Lowell Livezey 1943-2007

We are sorry report the death of Prof. Lowell Livezey, Professor of Urban and Religious Studies and Director of the Ecologies of Learning Project at the New York Theological Seminary.  Prof. Livezey pioneered ethnographic approaches to understanding the impact of urban religious life and was a leader and collaborator in researching the growing confidence of urban congregations in their communities. His work on Chicago Public Religion and Urban Transformation: Faith in the City provides a key model of this approach.

City Survivors

Anne Power: Guardian Society Profile

Activist and writer tells Lynsey Hanley that shortsighted urban housing developments dominated by one- and two-bed apartments are breaking up communities by driving poorer families out of the inner city

"Families are the litmus test of whether a city is really working. If a city isn't working for families it's very, very difficult to make the city work."

Anne Power's City Survivors: Bringing Up Children in Disadvantaged Neighbourhoods is published by Policy Press. See books column.

[limited access] or the open city?

LSE Cities  Programme Lecture

Professor Kees Christiaanse - Visiting Professor, LSE Cities Programme
This lecture will address whether these conditions are destroying the sensible tissue of the open city, which are intended to encourage social interaction and balance. Are cities degenerating into secluded islands that denying a balanced urban totality? And how might the open city react to these developments?

Date: Tuesday 20 November 2007
Time: 6.30pm
Location: The Hong Kong Theatre

Distinctiveness and Cities report

Beyond 'Find and Replace' Economic Development

This paper, part of The Work Foundation's Ideopolis: Knowledge City-Regions programme,  looks at the concept of ‘distinctiveness’ — the idea that the specialisms and characteristics of individual places can help cities build and sustain a distinctive identity. It argues for three conceptions of distinctiveness: functional, physical and intangible. But it cautions against flashy iconic developments or image campaigns which are not based on an underlying reality.

People, Place & Policy Online

People, Place and Policy Online provides a forum for debate about the situations and experiences of people and places struggling to negotiate a satisfactory accommodation with the various opportunities, constraints and risks within contemporary society.

Issue 2 is now available free to download.

Gated communities in England as a response to crime and disorder: context, effectiveness and implications

Cities and their hinterlands: how much do governance structures really matter?

Active citizenship in the governance of anti-social behaviour in the UK: exploring the non-reporting of incidents