Urban Talks: How Can Cities Thrive in Uncertainty

As different aspects of UNDP’s work on urban transformation in Europe and Central Asia come together, we’re embarking on a series of high level discussions about new practices to urban transformation, open for a broad audience. This series, called Urban Talks: How Can Cities Thrive in Uncertainty, will take place every Wednesday at 14:00 Istanbul time, starting on August 31, 2022.

Urban Talks will spotlight cities and initiatives that are building new inclusive visions across Europe and Central Asia and wider, and showcase how cities are demonstrating resilience, reinventing their economies, transitioning to inclusive and smart cities, and building new partnerships. It is a space for exchanging insights and learnings and bringing together a growing community of cities, practitioners and thinkers, that are approaching urban challenges in a systematic way. 

Register for the upcoming Urban Talks:

• 31 August | Urban Vision: For fairer, greener, and more creative cities (REGISTER)
  
  How are cities tackling competing priorities and developing long-term visions? A growing set of cities are moving away from linear planning to adopting mission-driven change – whether that is towards thriving within planetary boundaries, climate neutrality, centering around care, or seeking to be fairer. In this session, we will draw out the experience of the Istanbul Planning Agency’s Vision 2050 team, whose work focuses on making the city fairer, greener and more creative. We will also hear from local projects in municipalities in Turkey that can in turn inspire and guide other cities to rethink how they can reinvent themselves.

• 7 September | ReStart Ukraine: Leveraging crisis for renewal (REGISTER)
  
  Should Mykolaiv, Kherson include sea level rise in their long-term strategy? How can Chernihiv reinvent its security model and remain economically vibrant? What is the future of Mariupol? How many people will live in Ukraine and where? What are the new transit, energy and production models? ReStart Ukraine seeks a resilient approach, which will allow to plan ahead incorporating future challenges in concrete steps today. In this session, ReStart Ukraine will share its approach on assessing the impact of the war in Ukraine and using the momentum for reimagining cities, beyond infrastructure recovery. Looking holistically at the national, regional, and city scales and filtering in complex risk assessment trees, should allow us to shift from reacting to threats to strategic (even radical) planning.
  
• 14 September | 7 Generation Cities: Crafting value narratives for recovery (REGISTER)
  
  How to create equitable and regenerative cities, reconciling the past with the need for a radically different future? How can we enable structural change at the city level instead of incremental fixes? Jayne Engle, an Adjunct Professor at McGill University, and an urbanist, strategist, & experimentalist will share the findings from her latest book Sacred Civics: Building Seven Generation Cities. In it, she argues that societal transformation requires that spirituality and sacred values are essential to reimagining patterns of how we live, organize and govern ourselves, determine and distribute wealth, inhabit and design cities.
  
• 21 September | Urban Makeovers: Building vibrant cities (REGISTER)
  
  Cities in our region are experiencing large transitions: demographic shifts, dying of old industries and insurgence of new ones, or adapted ones, and multi-layered shocks. Our work with cities has shown that they are looking for diverse models of development and growth, which makes them attractive, dynamic and economically vibrant. This session will focus on the experience of Batumi, a coastal town in Georgia, that is seeking to build a startup ecosystem. We’ll also hear about frameworks that enable identification of interventions that bridge a dynamic cultural life with a growing economy. 

In the coming weeks, we will announce our upcoming sessions and please feel free to share this invitation with your network and communities.