News
April 21, 2021
Mark your Calendars for the Live Virtual Event, Creativity for Urban Future!
A Virtual Live Event: Creativity for Urban Future
Urban Economy Forum, in collaboration with UN-Habitat, ISOCARP, Commonwealth Association of Planners and World Architecture Community, and hosted by Urban + Future, has organized a virtual session on Creativity for Urban Future. The event will be held on April 21st from 10:00am – 12:30pm (Toronto Time), on occasion of the World Creativity and Innovation Day.
The Creativity for Urban Future session will facilitate global dialogue between governments, city leaders, urban planners, and urban activist to discuss how creativity and innovation contributes to building sustainable models of urbanization.
The session will highlight cities as multidimensional, complex, dynamic and powerful structures that can drive the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
At the scale of urbanization, there has been significant progress in disciplines and expertise that can help to address the complexities of city building and providing solutions to face current challenges. At the core of urban planning should be good urban design that is creative and innovative where buildings, places and spaces are not isolated elements but as part of the whole city.
Cities are part of a constantly evolving relationship between people, land, culture and the wider environment. This in essence, together with land use policies will move cities toward the sustainability goals.
During the last decade, people’s lives have been affected by great technological innovation that has dramatically changed people’s lifestyles. Today we are witnessing the advancement of technology in many aspects of daily life but when compared to new technologies for urban development, there is a long way to go.
Creativity for Urban Future calls for a transformative approach to urban development that creates a place for people to live better and longer in a clean, safe, fair and beautiful environment.
It has been completely evident just how much the COVID-19 pandemic has affected everyone’s way of life. Importantly, it has underscored the importance of housing as a place to live and work. COVID-19 has demonstrated that we need to change the traditional style of housing and workplace. This new characteristic, where home and work are no longer separated, is changing the paradigm of human settlements.
We strongly believe that with the fast changes happening across the world, we need to rethink the matter of urban development, housing and the style of urban future to facilitate the necessary and adequate transformation of urbanization.
Speakers
- Adam Vaughan, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development (Housing)
- Ali Ehsassi, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry (Innovation and Industry)
- Anantha Krishnan, Secretary General, Urban Economy Forum
- Camila Ween, Director at Goldstein Ween Architects, Harvard Loeb Fellow
- Eduardo Lopez Moreno, Head of Knowledge and Innovation, UN-Habitat
- Eleanor Mohammed, President, Commonwealth Association of Planners
- Frank D’hondt, Secretary General, ISOCARP
- Jose Etcheverry, Member of the Board of Governors, York University
- Kamran Hassani, Co-Director, Urban+Future & Professor, CDI College
- Ken Greenberg, Architect and Principal of Greenberg Consultants
- Lynn Xu, Director, University Research Center for Urban and Environmental Studies, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
- Massoud Ghandchi, Co-Director, Urban + Future & Chair, Ghandchi Foundation
- Matti Siemiatycki, Associate Professor of Geography and Planning & Interim Director of School of Cities, University of Toronto
- Michael Brooks, CEO, REALPAC
- Mitchell Cohen, President, The Daniels Corporation
- Nadar Ardalan, Architect
- Reza Pourvaziry, Chair, Urban Economy Forum
- Sam Chegini, Independent Filmmaker & Founder and CEO, Sam Pictures Productions
- Sean Toussi, Principal Architect, M.Arch. & Forbes Magazine Council Member
- Tom Mrakas, Mayor, Town of Aurora
Information on this release:
Registration (free!): https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/creativity-for-urban-future-tickets-150576736071
Urban Economy Forum
Media Contact
media@ueforum.org
Urban + Future
Media Contact
media@urbanplusfuture.org