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You may have seen some postings elsewhere about the Towards Carfree Cities Conference, which is coming to the UK for the first time this June (see below). For those of you who haven't come across this conference before, it tends to attract a mixture of academics, students, professionals and activists from around the world. One of the workshop sessions which I will be running is aimed at academic researchers and research students. It will explore the state of current research and knowledge gaps in issues around carfree development and carfree living. We want to encourage networking and discuss opportunities for international collaborations. So, if your research interest, or those of any of your students, touches on these areas, we would very much like you meet you in York this June... Best Regards Steve Melia Senior Lecturer, Transport & Planning University of the West of England 0117 328 3267 Towards Carfree Cities IX: How Do We Get There? York, United Kingdom: 28 June to 1 July 2010 Registration now open: http://www.worldcarfree.net/conference Please contact us for details of day rates. The goal of the Towards Carfree Cities conference series is to promote alternatives to car-oriented urban and transport planning, ultimately leading to the transformation of towns and cities into human-scaled environments rich in public space and community life. The focus is on strategy, collaboration and exchange, assisting the practical work of conference participants, from organising carfree days to planning the carfree cities of the future. Next year's conference, co-organised by World Carfree Network and local members of Carfree UK, with the support of the Stockholm Environment Institute in York, has the theme "How Do We Get There?". It will focus on bringing carfree communities to life, considering a range of strategies from temporary events to permanent road space reallocation to European models of new carfree development. We plan to carry out a real street conversion during the conference! We will also learn from and seek inspiration from the past, by looking at how the medieval pedestrian city was organised spatially, and how these principles could be applied to future settlements. The key challenges of fostering political and public acceptability for car reduction measures will be examined, including an exploration of the conditions under which people willingly give up the car in exchange for the benefits of living in traffic-free environments.