Sunday, January 23, 2011

Urban Design After Oil


On the 50th anniversary of the historic and influential Rockefeller funded conference on urban design criticism at the University of Pennsylvania, attending by such current and future urban stars as Ian McHarg,  Lewis Mumford, William L.C. Wheaton, Catherine Bauer Wurster, Jane Jacobs, IM Pei, and Kevin Lynch, the university and foundation paired up again to present this weekend’s conference, “Re-imagining Cities: Urban Design After the Age of Oil.”  
The main underlying theme was planning for climate change (which also happens to be the special theme of a future special issue of JAPA, to be coedited by Penn’s John Landis and yours truly.  The call should be out before long).
You may find this strange but I was asked to attend not as a scholar and leader among women and men but as a “blogger,” along with several others, and so I did.  I mean, it’s a formal acknowledgment of my elevated coolness among my so-called peers.  In the spirit of the assignment, we posted almost real time reports on the sessions on the site of Next American City.  My posts are also below, but they don’t really make much sense separate from a close reading of the program, if they make any sense at all, and they likely work best in conjunction with the other blog coverage.  At some point, the recorded sessions will be available for your review.  


more readings about sustainable urban design:

We need a mobility plan, not a transportation plan

Reed unveils conservation plan to make Atlanta grow ‘greener’

Climate, Energy and Urbanization A Guide on Strategies, Materials and Technologies for Sustainable Development in the Desert

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