Engaged participants at conference about fair, green and accessible cities 

On October 5th 2017 over 150 people met at the Museum of World Culture in Gothenburg, Sweden to discuss and take part of different perspectives of fair, green and accessible cities. 

Mistra Urban Futures Gothenburg conference is part of the so-called EU autumn which culminates with the EU high level meeting Social Summit, 17th of November. The focus of the meeting which the City of Gothenburg hosts, is fair jobs and growth. 

Realising Just Cities – five perspectives 

After an introduction by Margareta Forsberg, Director, Mistra Urban Futures Gothenburg and Anna Ledin, Director of the Environmental Administration at the City of Gothenburg about Mistra Urban Futures the participants got the opportunity to listen to five different perspectives of just cities. Jan Jörnmark, Associate Professor at the School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg, talked about segregation and movements within the city. He claimed that Gothenburg is the city that always has expanded somewhere else, and not in the city centre. Director of City Planning Agneta Hammer and architect Malin Finlöf, City of Gothenburg talked about how to create sustainable living environments, where the jubilee park in Frihamnen to be launched officially at the cities 400 jubilee in 2021 is one example. 

Tomas Ekberg, chief analyst, Region Västra Götaland, spoke about happiness, different living conditions and resources. Lisa Andersson, project leader, RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, talked about innovation and challenging the norms and how the city´s system and structures effect the people living there. Michael Ivarson, Director of Social Resources Management, City of Gothenburg, ended the morning with talking about Equal Gothenburg and how the city works with issues of equity and justice. 

In the afternoon the participants got a chance to dive into different thematic discussion about participation (Fair), sustainable lifestyles (Green) and accessibilty to what and for whom (Accessible)? Within each thematic discussion three experts gave their view on the subject which was followed by energetic discussions between the participants and experts. 

Rethinking Sustainable Cities

For the final sessions of the day, the conference opened up for the public and the audience was captivated by an inspiring lecture by Mistra Urban Futures Director David Simon. He spoke about the urgency to rethink sustainable cities so they can become fair, green and accessible. 

The book Rethinking Sustainable Cities – Accessible, Green and Fair edited by David Simon and published by Policy Press is open access and can be downloaded here. 

See more films from the conference (in Swedish) on youtube.com/mistraurbanfutures 

Questions?

Contact Ulrica Gustafsson, Event Manager, Mistra Urban Futures ulrica.gustafsson@chalmers.se or Jenny Sjödin, Communications Manager, Mistra Urban Futures, jenny.sjodin@chalmers.se 

Read more

Mistra Urban Futures Göteborgskonferens 2017 - Rättvis, grön och tillgänglig stad  (in Swedish)
EU-hösten 2017  (in Swedish)
Social Summit 17

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Photo: Chalmers Film- och Fotocommitté