About this event
Join us for our online CSU Green Cities event: Towards Sustainable Urbanism on Wednesday, June 11th from 12 -1p featuring guest speaker Dr. Janice Perlman and moderated by CSU board member Lance Jay Brown.
Talk Abstract
Towards Sustainable Urbanism, Shortening the time lag between Ideas and Implementation
This talk focuses on urban initiatives at the intersection of poverty and environment. It is based the experience of the Mega-Cities Project, a global research/action network. The impetus for the initiative was the 25-years it took to change public policy from eradication of self-built communities to on-site upgrading.
In the context of global urbanization, Dr. Perlman will present a structure and strategy for sharing approaches that work –by identifying them and scaling up or transfer/adaptation in other cities. We consider the cities field laboratories for cost-effective, replicable approaches to the shared challenges of income-generation and resource depletion. She will also present examples of innovations adapted from the Global South to the North as well as South-South transfers, contesting the assumption that the rich, technologically advanced cities will be the model for others to emulate.
South-North Transfers: Curitiba Bus Tubes to NYC
Sao Paulo Alert II to NYC
South-South Transfers: Magic Eyes from Bangkok to Rio, Manila and Jakarta
Zabaleen from Cairo to Manila and Mumbai
Reforestation: parallel experiences in Rio, Jakarta Kampungs
North-South Transfer: City Harvest from NYC to Rio
Speaker: Dr. Janice Perlman
Dr. Perlman’s work bridges research, policy and practice. The Myth of Marginality, won the C. Wright Mills Award and was named #1 of the 5 best books on “the economy as if people mattered.” FAVELA won two PROSE Awards. She is Founder & President of The Mega-Cities Project, a global NGO sharing innovative solutions among the world’s largest cities. She had tenured in the Dept of City & Regional Planning at UC Berkeley. Awards include Guggenheim, Fulbright, Global Citizen’s and the UN Scroll of Honor. She holds a BA in Anthropology from Cornell and a PhD in Political Science from MIT.
Moderator/Host: Lance Jay Brown, FAIA, DPACSA, NOMA
Lance Jay Brown, FAIA, DPACSA, NOMA is a founding board member and Immediate Past President of the Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization He taught at Princeton and is the former Chair and Director of the Spitzer School of Architecture, CCNY. Educated at the Cooper Union he holds two master’s degrees from the GSD at Harvard University. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (FAIA) He is ACSA Distinguished Professor for Life and received the coveted AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education. He has edited and authored numerous publications and consults, teaches, and lectures nationally and internationally.
Learning Objectives:
1. Examine how prevailing stereotypes of informal settlements influence public policy decisions and restrict inclusive, sustainable urban development.
2. Analyze grassroots environmental and income-generation innovations, such as Cairo’s Zabaleen and Bangkok’s Magic Eyes, and their relevance in addressing poverty-environment intersections.
3. Evaluate real-world examples of South-North and South-South solution transfers, including Curitiba’s BRT and Rio’s reforestation efforts, and how these innovations have been adapted to new urban contexts.
4. Compare aspirational visions of future cities with practical, community-driven solutions, and reflect on the gap between high-level planning ideals and local implementation realities.
Sponsor Organization for Green Cities:
Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization (CSU), UN-Habitat, AIA New York, AIANY Planning & Design, the NGo Committee on Sustainable Development-NY, Habitat Professionals Forum for Sustainable Cities, Creative Exchange Lab (CEL), Global Urban Development (GUD), and the Columbia University Center for Buildings, Infrastructure and Public Space (CBIPS).
