The University of Louisville’s School of Urban & Public Affairs is hosting the Ideal City Conference beginning tomorrow, July 22 and running through the weekend – and you’re invited. Beginning each day at 8:30 a.m., Professor John Gilderbloom has arranged for an international panel to tackle the challenges facing cities today and into the future.
While the conference isn’t free, if you mention Broken Sidewalk at registration, you can get a discounted rate of $99 for the entire conference (that’s down from $350!). The entire schedule is posted after the click, but some of the featured speakers include Bill Weyland, Steve Wiser, Tom Owen, and many other local and national notables.
The topics cover cities in general and many use Louisville as a prime example covering issues such as sustainability, equitable development, urban landscape and biodiversity, urban design, and many more. This sounds like an excellent opportunity to catch up with some leading urban thinkers to discuss the future of Louisville and the American city.
Schedule for Ideal City Conference July 22 to 25, 2010
University of Louisville, Urban and Public Affairs; 426 West Bloom, Louisville, KY 40208 (502-852-8557)
Upon Registration, Parking Passes will be available for attendees on Thursday and Friday in the Gravel Parking Lot behind the School of Urban and Public Affairs Building. We will also provide tickets for Comedy Caravan Program. Parking on Saturday and Sunday is open behind the building, no pass necessary.
We thank our sponsors: University of Louisville Center for Sustainable Urban Neighborhoods, University of Louisville Urban and Public Affairs, Heine Brothers, Urbancity, Energy Systems Group, Broken Sidewalk, and Metro Louisville.
Doors Open at 8:30 AM each day.
that about skyscraper???
I’m really sorry I’m out of town and can’t attend this conference. What has been bothering me lately is the way Louisville has failed to frame, failed to find language for its development issues. The ‘good guys’ I’m involved with all too often devote themselves to defensive skirmishes, to ‘gotcha’ reactions, to provisional supplication. Meanwhile the self-satisfied old-boy network maintains power by carefully ignoring the supplicants and using those deaf ears to make the ‘good guys’ seem weak, irrelevant, and out of touch.
Things will change only if the ideas it seems this conference deals with find a venue for general, public discussion. As long as the interaction between the two sides(there should actually be MORE than two!) is framed by hierarchy – power v. weakness, grantors v. supplicants – no actual IDEAS will be addressed.
I hope folks who go to this conference report back. It is time to accumulate ideas and prepare places and ways to bring them into the community conversation. We’re really not getting anywhere, people. We keep preaching and bitching to ourselves. Until big ideas and not just little issues are talked about, we will not move forward. No city that becomes better does so by avoiding such talk or by just taking potshots.
Hear Hear, Ken. Second your call to quit preaching to the choir. If everyone in the room is 'converted', what's the use in preaching?
Talk needs to transition from 'idea assembly' (we do plenty well at that) and from 'how to frame debates', to ACTUALLY FRAMING issues and debates. Rather than in-fighting and remaining mired in never ending concept refinement, let's move into the real world.
whoa talk about last minute notice. how long has this been planned and how did i miss the memo?
I don’t mean to slight BS in any way, but to answer David Conrad, this event has been posted at Louisville History & Issues since June 28. Events like this are regularly posted there.
Thanks, Steve. As you know, Broken Sidewalk was on hiatus for a while otherwise there would have been more advance notice.
Well…? Did anyone go? I'm really curious about what was discussed.
It isn’t the responsibility of local-interest blogs to promote special events. When they are a sponsor of the event, however….
I didn’t hear of this event until it was too late to consider participating. Could BS or a SUN or a MUP provide a summary of the conference, speeches, and discussions? Will there be a fifth annual conference [sustainable urban neighborhoods website]? Are the lectures submitted for continuing education credits?
I’ll ask one more time about this conference. Did anyone go? Does anyone have anything to report? It is this kind of ‘big picture’ approach that interests me most, and I’d like to talk about issues that transcend the recurring skirmishes we spend so much time on.