June 2020 - UN-Habitat’s most popular video series, the Global Urban Lectures, launches its sixth season on Tuesday 23 June.
With over 170,000 views from 65 countries to date, the series of 15-minute video lectures features renowned experts discussing cutting-edge research and practical recommendations on advancing urban sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals in cities.
The sixth series features 10 lectures providing quick and efficient online learning tools for local government officials, students, academics and other urban professionals at a time when meetings and lectures are cancelled.
Dr. Sahar Attia, Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at Cairo University and chair of UN-Habitat’s university partnership, UN-Habitat UNI, emphasizes the importance of digital learning on urban issues today:
"With digital education becoming the new normal, the Global Urban Lectures offer innovative and practical distance learning not only for students, scholars, and researchers but also to a wider range of audiences interested in the challenges of cities today."
The new season of the Global Urban Lectures is produced with the support of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, and features several videos addressing topics closely related to climate change and urban resilience.
The COVID-19 restrictions meant that lecturers recorded from home using phones and laptops. Each video release also proposes a synopsis, a biography of the speaker, an audio track and links to additional reading material for further study.
A new lecture will be released every Tuesday until the end of August and is available, along with the previous seasons of the Global Urban Lectures with additional material at: unhabitat.org/knowledge/global-urban-lectures. All the videos are also on UN-Habitat’s youtube channel and you can subscribe to ensure you do not miss any of them.
Release schedule:
• 23 June – Nadine Ibrahim– University of Waterloo
"Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Global Cities" describes the different ways in which emissions are accounted for at city level, and observes the differences between the methodologies by which inventories for cities are calculated.
• 30 June – David Sanderson– University of New South Wales
"Ten takeaways for better urban humanitarian response" presents key lessons for humanitarian aid practitioners working in urban settings following crises.
• 07 July – Robin Grossinger and Erica Spotswood – San Francisco Estuary Institute
"Making Nature's City" demonstrates why urban conservation planning is an essential component of urban design, and illustrates how nature can be incorporated through strategic planning that yields critical benefits for both ecosystems and people.
• 14 July – Shlomo Angel – New York University
"The anatomy of density" offers a new outline for a comprehensive making-room strategy for city densification, addressing each and every one of the six factors that constitute urban density.
• 21 July – Sonia Roitman – The University of Queensland
"Gated community development in our cities" discusses the structural causes and repercussions of gated communities on urban systems and planning strategies, looking at exemples from around the world over the last 30 years.
• 28 July – Matthew Carmona – University College London
"The place value" introduces the idea that how we shape places through the governance of urban design has a direct impact on their place value – the health, social, economic and environmental value they return.
• 04 August – Angelique Chettiparambil Rajan – University of Reading
"In my Backyard'! Waste and energy in a Circular Economy" aims to introduce the idea of 'Zero waste regimes' and 'Decentralized energy systems' for both material and energy recovery from waste, thus instituting a circular economy through waste management.
• 11 August – Roberto Rocco – Delft University of Technology
The social components of sustainable urban development solutions are often overlooked in favour of economic and/or environmental factors. "The Tragedy of the commons and social sustainability" brings together two areas of study that are generally separated: sustainability and socio-spatial justice.
• 18 August – Cathy Oke – University of Melbourne
"Bridging Research and Policy for Climate Action" emphasises the role of a global cities’ alliance through the example of “Innovate4Cities”, to better connect researchers and city leaders in the development and effective implementation of innovative climate solutions.
• 25 August – Jaideep Gupte – IDS, University of Sussex and Global Challenges Research Fund, UKRI
"Data Driven: How local data and social innovation can help make cities inclusive and safe" analyses 'the city' as a complex system, and brings 'smart' solutions to complex urban issues.