Keynote Presentations
Opening Session
Jeff Kenworthy
Curtin University, Perth (Australia)
"A key to urban sustainability: Overcoming automobile dependence"
Professor in Sustainable Cities, Curtin University, Perth, Australia, and Visiting DAAD Teaching Fellow at the Fachhochschule Frankfurt am Main, Germany.Jeff Kenworthy has spent 30 years in the transport and urban planning field and currently teaches courses and supervises postgraduate students in the city policy and urban sustainability fields. He is co-author (with Peter Newman, Felix Laube and others) of a number of books, a.o. Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence; Cities and Automobile Dependence: An International Sourcebook; An International Sourcebook of Auto-mobile Dependence in Cities, 1960-1990; Winning Back the Cities. He is the recipient of a Prime Minister’s Centenary Medal for “service to planning and sustainability in relation to public transport and urban form”.
Powerpoint Presentation given on 19-9-2008 as pdf
Ronan Uhel
Head of Group Spatial Analysis, European Environment Agency (Denmark)
"Urbanisation in Europe: Limits to spatial Growth"
On behalf of Prof. Jacqueline McGlade, Chief Executive, European Environment Agency.
In charge of the Spatial Analysis Department at the European Environment Agency, Ronan Uhel has more than 20 years of experience in European sustainable development issues from an analytical and political standpoint. As such, he has participated in relevant UN-based activities (UN-CSD, UNEP-GEO, UN-Habitat) and OECD assessments and paid early attention to the global dimension of environmental problems. Integrated urban matters struck him as a weak link in the related policy discussions and therefore his interest in contributing to the first EU Green Paper on Urban environment issued in 1990, an important milestone in putting cities and urban areas on the EU policy agenda. The EEA report "Urban sprawl in Europe - The ignored challenge" (2006), which he coordinated, shows that unfortunately little progress have been made since in terms of integrated urban spatial planning.
Powerpoint Presentation given on 19-9-2008 as pdf
Alfonso Vegara
President Fundación Metropoli (Spain)
“Intelligent Cities"
President and founder of Fundación Metrópoli, Madrid, Spain, dedicated to the investigation of the future of the cities. Alfonso Vegara is an urban architect, economist and sociologist with a doctorate in city and regional planning. He has been professor of urbanism in architecture schools in Madrid and Navarra as well as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of many books covering territorial and regional themes including “Terri-to-rios Inteligentes”. From 2003 – 2006, he was President of ISO-CARP. He has directed many planning projects, many of which have been published and has won a number of important prizes, like the European Award of Planning in two occasions. In 2007 he was award-ed by the king of Spain with the Rey Jaime Award in the cate-gory of Sustainability, Landscape and Urbanism.
Powerpoint Presentation given on 19-9-2008 as pdf (first part)
second part
Qiu Baoxing
Deputy Minister Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Construction (China)
“Compactness and Diversity: Core of Sustainable Urban Development in China”
President of Chinese Society of Urban Studies, Deputy Minister of Construction (Planning), Beijing, China. PhD. in urban planning (Tongji University) and economics (Fudan University). Publications include books and papers in a wide range of topics - urbanisation, urban and regional planning, infrastructure, urban transportation, enterprises clustering, sustainable development, etc.
Powerpoint Presentation given on 19-9-2008 as pdf
Jianguo Shen
Interregional Adviser, UN Human Settlements Programme
Message from the Under-Secretary General of the United Nations, Dr Anna Tibaijuka, Executive Director of the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT)