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RGS-IBG Annual Conference, Manchester: 26-28 August 2009

(www.rgs.org/AC2009)

Call for Papers

Organic Regeneration: or how the credit crunch could save our cities

The credit crunch has effectively halted speculator-led regeneration.  
Rapidly declining confidence in housing markets and worsening economic  
fundamentals have paralysed the supply of new projects and sent demand  
for housing and offices into rapid reversal. Tales emanating from the  
construction sector about demolishing half-built houses have started  
doing the rounds. The model that has driven urban renewal over the  
last 15 years is dead.

Far from being an abstract failure, the current financial crisis is  
rooted in urban materiality ? the woes of sub-prime mortgages have  
issued forth from a (literally) bankrupt vision of cities and what  
they are for. Thus while the negative effects of the credit crunch  
(most notably repossessions) are hitting the poorest areas of cities  
hardest, it is in cities that the opportunity to present new ideas and  
visions of the future is also most apparent. This session aims to  
explore alternative visions of the city and regeneration that might be  
seized upon to help construct more sustainable urban futures.

Possible contributions might consider:

?	Place sustainability: the creation and retention of place  
distinctiveness, including environmental, built and cultural features.

?	Mixed use that goes beyond the generic mix of flats, retail, bars  
and offices to capture the complexity of place, layering different  
uses and achieving a balance between traditional and modern form.

?	Slow architecture which avoids sweeping changes in order to evolve  
and adapt to changing needs and uses.

?	Models of development that value cities as places, rather than just  
commodities.

?	The scale at which urban development can and should be practiced and  
the attendant implications for its governance.

?	Regeneration that addresses environmental and spatial justice.

?	How alternatives can be put into practice, considering which aspects  
of planning and regeneration might be most open to a change in  
thinking at this point.

?	Community-led development that breaks down divisions between private  
developers and communities.

?	Alternative visions (?viable utopias?) and the importance of  
?events? in defining urban spaces and generating inclusive spaces.

?	Experimental forms of regeneration governance.

?	The importance of ?atmosphere? in making some places ?work? and  
others not, and the challenges of generating ?atmosphere?.

?	Regeneration as art.

?	Alternative discourses of development and regeneration issuing forth  
from other organisations or countries.

Contributions are welcomed that explore these and other relevant  
issues empirically and /or theoretically.

Please send abstracts of no more than 200 words or expressions of  
interest to either James Evans ([log in to unmask]) or Phil  
Jones ([log in to unmask]) by the 20th of January, 2009.


-- 
James Evans

Director MSc Environmental Governance
School of Environment and Development
University of Manchester
ph. +44(0)161 306 6680

MSc Environmental Governance
http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/geography/postgraduate/taught/courses/eg/

Rescue Geography: developing methods for public geographers
http://www.gees.bham.ac.uk/research/cpp/rescuegeography/index.htm

Society and Environment Research Group, University of Manchester
http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/research/SERG.htm