Digitalisation and flexible urban space

In critical scholarship on digital technologies and cities, key foci have been the control of urban circulations through smart cities software and the privatisation of urban infrastructure. This lecture takes a different approach to the political and economic implications of digitalisation by considering how technologies are involved in the production and valuation of urban space as flexible. It outlines how digital technologies tend less towards rendering the city entirely knowable and more towards constructing an urban environment in which anything can happen. This shift towards spatial flexibility is traced through the case of the office building and office work in London from the 1980s. This example shows the economic valuation of flexible office space and the technologies for its production are tied to the emerging social value and sometimes imperative of flexibility in everyday work and life.

Adequate and climate smart housing as a driver for equitable and sustainable urban development – towards a UN-Habitat applied research agenda

Urbanization is one of the mega trends of the 21st century. The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) is mandated by the UN General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities. UN-Habitat is the focal point for all urbanization and human settlement matters within the UN system. The UN-Habitat Strategic Plan 2026-2029, recently adopted by Member States, sets access to adequate housing, land, and basic services for all as key strategic priorities.
This lecture provides an overview of effects, issues and opportunities of urbanization in different geographical contexts. It outlines central elements of the UN Agenda 2030 and Sustainable Development Goal 17 “Sustainable Cities and Communities”, as well as the New Urban Agenda and other intergovernmental frameworks relevant for monitoring and evaluating progress in sustainable urbanization and provides a critical assessment of the status quo. Access to adequate housing, land, and basic services are defined as key levers for sustainable and equitable urban transformation in impact areas such as poverty eradication, crisis preparedness and response, and environment and climate action. The lecture also presents an initial version of an applied research agenda that the UN-Habitat Canada Office is currently developing to support sustainable and equitable urban transformation through co-creation processes with researchers and local communities in some of the more than 60 countries where UN-Habitat has offices.

From Exhibition to Developer: Continuities and Rifts in the IBA Hamburg as an Instrument of Urban Development