Shaping Equitable Urban Futures

This session is designed to explore narratives and best practices around public value and quality of design of the built environment, focusing on innovative and experimental approaches to policymaking and spatial design that prioritise the common good. The session will explore case studies of cities developing critical transformations ‘on the ground’ that aim to improve the lives of urban citizens and help meet SDGs. 

• Shaping caring and inclusive cities: the case of Bogotá
• Developing equitable plans for uncertain futures: the cases of Gaziantep and Freetown
• Reorienting the housing market to deliver public value: the case of Barcelona

The key question will be ‘how do narratives and practices around governance, planning and urban economies need to shift to enable fundamental transformations to a more equitable future?’

This event is organised in partnership with the Council on Urban Initiatives, a collaboration between UN-Habitat, UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, and LSE Cities at the London School of Economics. Launched in November 2021, the Council is an independent body established constituted by an international group of eighteen pioneering mayors, practitioners, activists and academics. The Council’s mission is to advocate for the power of cities to promote systemic change to achieve the goal of the green, just and healthy city.

Transforming cities by investing in public value and public space

• How can urban spaces be designed to centre marginalised populations?
• Given future uncertainties around migration and climate change, how can planning principles be adapted to uncertainty and flux?
• How can urban environments be designed to promote equity and inclusion in the context of shifting populations and cultures?
• What are the key barriers to implementing equitable transformations at the city level, and what needs to be done to mitigate these?
• How can transformations be sustainably financed and institutionalised beyond short-term political cycles?