Thinking Big

The Urbego training course

Thinking Big is held in London as part of the International Federation of Housing and Planning (IFHP) Centenary Congress: A tomorrow for cities – for people, by people on the 8th – 11th June 2013 Urbego is a platform of young planning professionals within IFHP promoting knowledge exchange and sharing of experiences to trigger new ideas and innovations amongst young planners, professionals and students. Urbego and UN-Habitat are organizing an integrated and synergic agenda of debates, case study sessions and a mini training course analyzing the social and economic causes and consequences of currently emerging patterns of urbanization, and develop approaches to achieve prosperous cities.

For more information please contact Giulia Maci (g.maci@ifhp.org) or visit the website http://london2013.ifhp.org/

Urbego training course on strategies to deal with urban growth London, June 5th-6th-7th, 2013

Thinking Big

This training event is designed as a high learning executive workshop that will help participants to develop skills and knowledge to address environmental and climate change impacts on cities. The learning programme draws on the experience of UN-Habitat and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and their development partners. Participants will get acquainted with the tools and methodologies developed through the implementation of Local Agenda 21 programmes, the Sustainable Cities Program, Cities and Climate Change Initiative and the Global Compact Cities Programme, their evolution and their application by local governments in order to build sustainable and climate resilient cities. The course adopts a “HOW TO” approach with an intent to increase specific skills needed to implement specific sustainable development objectives; through e.g. tools, better practices, case-studies, effective and practical approaches for implementation, guidelines.

Day 1

Scaling-up: tools and Methodologies to Build Sustainable Cities in the 21th Century Time: Wednesday 5th of June 9.00-17.00 Location: TCPA

17 Carlton House Terrace, London

Paul James Director of the United Nations Global Compact, Cities Programme, and Director of the Global Cities Institute (RMIT University).

Day 2

Fast Forward cities: planning and design for inclusive cities Time: Thursday 6th of June 9.00-17.00 Location: TCPA

17 Carlton House Terrace, London

Claudio Acioly Head Capacity Development Unit Housing & Urban Management Expert UN-HABITAT Banashree Banerjee Urban planner, staff member at IHS Rotterdam, and at School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi.

This practical and problem-solving oriented one-day learning event in the form of a mini-course will focus on approaches and strategies to address the problems arising from informal urbanization an d the rise of slums and different types of informal settlements in cities in the developing world.

The workshop will provide participants with a global, regional and city-level overview of the scale and scope of the problem of slums, discuss the different approaches and solutions, and present for discussions the street-led citywide slum upgrading strategy as proposed by UN-Habitat. This strategy suggests a move towards the opening of streets through citizen participation as a strategic spatial intervention for citywide slum upgrading, to foster urban regeneration in both social and physical terms, transformation and integration of informal settlements into the city plans. The programme would be comprised of 4 sessions of 1.5 hours in an interactive and participative environment.

The session would contextualize the previous day's discussions with a focus on the issues affecting London, including the need to facilitate and accommodate a significant amount of future development. The day will be run by three leading practitioners, representing the private sector (Jonathan Manns), local and regional Government (Lisa O’Donnell and Colin Wilson), and setting out how to approach the planning process with reference to challenges, policies and proposals across the capital. It will consider the way in which the planning system is able to respond to the challenges faced and deliver development in the context of regularly conflicting stakeholder perspectives.

Day 3

Developing London: Up or Out? Time: Friday 7th of June 9.00-17.00 Location: UCL

Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT

Colin Wilson Strategic Planning Manager at the Greater London Authority Jonathan Manns Associate Director of Planning with Colliers International Lisa O’Donnell Head of Spatial and Environmental Planning at Westminster City Council