"Life in the urban landscape" International Conference for Integrating Urban Knowledge & Practice Gothenburg, Sweden, May 30 - June 4, 2005 Call for papers Deadline October 15th 2004

The international conference Life in the Urban Landscape, will be held in Gothenburg in 2005, organised by the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning (Formas), together with a number of co-organisers.
Urban life and urban culture have always been at the heart of civilization and economic development. Cities all over the world are facing great challenges targeting the dynamic and contradictory trends of today. With the globalisation of economy and environmental systems on the one hand and individualisation of everyday life and politics on the other, we see new urban landscapes and processes coming into being.
In times of rapid change there is an obvious risk of a city losing its soul. Local history, identity and culture clashing with new populations, influences and life-styles are raising questions about the competitive, attractive and exciting city. At the same time there is tremendous pressure on cities to be ecologically sound and socially balanced. The new context is unfamiliar for many of us, and with an unclear balance of responsibilities, mandates, resources and power we face the risk of getting stuck in wishful thinking. Therefore, we need to develop new approaches.
With the conference Life in the Urban Landscape we wish to
• Stimulate innovative urban professionalism and knowledge
• Support creative and responsible leadership in cities
• Contribute to the evolution of co-operative and cross-border approaches to urban development work.
The focus of the conference will be on the co-operative work, the integration of systems, sectors and actors in urban development and the interlinkages between the various systems, actors and levels of governance. Urban professionals as well as academics and decision makers have already entered the transition from sectoral and disciplinary working cultures towards comprehensive and co-operative problem solving. The new context is unfamiliar for many of us, and with an unclear balance of responsibilities, mandates, resources and power, we face the risk of getting stuck in wishful thinking. We need a deeper understanding of what will be required of the arenas, actors, structures, methods and tools involved, and we need to develop new approaches.
Taking everyday urban life and real examples from the experience of the participants as our starting point, we hope to bring some of the critical issues regarding the new urban landscapes and processes one step further. The conference will have four overlapping strands:
• Actors: Who are the key actors in urban development, what roles do they play, what are their working methods?
• Arenas: What are the characteristics of supporting frameworks and platforms? How can you create and maintain democratic arenas for urban development processes?
• Rules of the game: How can clear and transparent common rules of the game be developed and agreed in a multi-partner, multi-level network process?
• Instruments: From experience, which are the most effective, communicative and user-friendly tools and methods?
We believe that urban development processes in different parts of the world, under various circumstances and conditions, are correspondent in the character of the challenges. We welcome urban professionals, policy makers and researchers from all continents to explore the emerging field of Urban Knowledge and to meet for informed debate and joint learning.
We expect around 500 highly committed participants and we welcome contributions to the programme from all kinds of experience.

Potential participants are invited to submit abstracts of 500 words maximum. The deadline for submission is 15 October 2004
Colleagues from any professional or educational background; engineers, biologists, geographers, architects, sociologists, political scientists, historians etc are all invited and we welcome a variety of contributions

Download the call for paper (deadline 15 oct. 04)

For further information: http://www.urbanlife2005.com/
Contact : E-mail: info@urbanlife2005.com | Tel: +46 -8 775 40 00 | Fax: +46 - 8 775 40 10 | Address: PO Box 1206, SE-111 82 Stockholm, Sweden

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