Urban Futures: Planning for City Foresight and City Visions
City visions represent shared, and often desirable, expectations about our urban futures. Urban Futures: Planning for City Foresight and City Visions explores the history and evolution of city visions, placing them in the wider context of art, culture, science, foresight and urban theory.
It highlights and critically reviews examples of city visions from around the world, contrasting their development and outlining the key benefits and challenges in planning such visions.
The authors show how important it is to think about the future of cities in objective and strategic ways, engaging with a range of stakeholders – something more important than ever as we look to visions of a sustainable future beyond the COVID-19 crisis.
Join authors Timothy J Dixon and Mark Tewdwr-Jones in partnership with the University of Toronto’s School of Cities in a virtual discussion of Urban Futures and the directions we may see our cities move towards.
For more detail on Urban Futures and to purchase the book, please visit https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/urban-futures
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About the speakers
Timothy J Dixon is Emeritus Professor at the University of Reading (School of the Built Environment), a Research Associate at the Global Centre for Healthcare and Urbanisation, and a Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College. Tim is a qualified chartered surveyor and has more than 40 years of experience in built environment research, teaching, and practice. His research encompasses city foresight, futures studies, sustainable futures in the built environment and social sustainability. Professor Dixon led the University of Reading’s input into the ‘Reading 2050’ vision for a smart and sustainable city. He was also co-chair of the Reading Climate Change Partnership, which is working to create a sustainable, resilient, and net zero Reading by 2030, and is a former member of the Climate Change Advisory Group for Wokingham Borough Council, and the Thames Valley Berkshire LEP Net Zero Taskforce. His book (with Mark Tewdwr-Jones) on Urban Futures (Policy Press) won the best book award 2022 (Urban Affairs Association).
Mark Tewdwr-Jones is UCL Bartlett Professor of Cities and Regions at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London. With degrees in urban planning, political science and film, Mark is one of the leading planners globally. His expertise covers urban and regional planning, spatial planning policy and governance, planning engagement, digital planning, housing, and urban futures. He was Chair of Spatial Planning and Governance at UCL, Chair of Town Planning and Director of Newcastle City Futures at Newcastle University. Over 30 years, he has produced 20 books, written 20 government reports and over 200 peer-reviewed papers, attracted £25m in research income, and contributed to disciplinary, inter-disciplinary, methodological and outreach fields in the academy, linking social science to science, the visual understanding of urban and regional change, and urban innovation policy. He has worked in government, given evidence to legislature committees, has advised cities globally and OECD, World Bank and Lloyd’s of London, and has undertaken research work previously for research councils in many countries. Mark has been a visiting professor at Berkeley, Nijmegen, Hong Kong, Western Sydney, New South Wales, Guadalajara, Pretoria, Dublin, and Malta and has served on the boards of RTPI, TCPA, Future Cities Catapult, and the Digital Planning Task Force. He was Chair of the Regional Studies Association 2017-20.
