The RC21
Conference 2015 will be hosted by the School of Social and Political Sciences –
Department of Economics, Society, and Politics at the University of Urbino
Carlo Bo, Italy.
In the wake of globalization and
State rescaling, cities are regaining relevance as social laboratories for new
and innovative practices of social inclusion and participation. Within this
trend cities are becoming again and more than ever a project. Policy‐makers, planners, inhabitants and mob
le people build representations and idealizations that make a big part of the
allure of urban life. Cities are imagined, made and remade “by design”. This
has long tradition: from the grids of Roman cities to contemporary capitals
like Brasilia, from Megalopolis like Shēnzhèn to living experiments like
Soleri’s Arcosanti; from urban lives in the Renaissance to the Futurist vertical
dreams; from, the 19th‐century garden cities to the current hype for smart cities.
All these “cities on paper”
have to cope with the complexity and unpredictability of everyday life, of the
flow of endogenous or exogenous events, that re‐conceptualize functions and visions. Cities are embedded in social,
economic and political contexts. The dream of the planner of ideal cities, as
the three Renaissance panels hosted in Baltimore, Urbino (see above) and
Berlin, is totally or largely deserted, as to avoid the complexity of the
interaction between Utopia and reality.
The conference is interested
in unveiling this complexity. By questioning utopian and ideal visions of the
city – as represented in policies, public discourses… – it aims at putting them
in perspective considering actual agency and current structural changes. How
does socio‐economic
change – neoliberalization? – affect cities and their ideal “diverse” visions?
How do poverty and inequalities challenge ideal views of a just city? How are
ideal cities contrasting real cities affected by segregation and social
exclusion practices? Do different ideals coexist? Does the crisis affect our
urban projects? In which direction? Who wins who loses? How do visions and
ideals differ across the globe and how are they questioned by increasingly
similar challenges?
Venue
The conference will take place at the
University of Urbino Carlo Bo.
The venue is: Polo Volponi (ex-Magistero) Via A. Saffi, 15– 61029 Urbino (PU), Italy.
Sessions A1 and B1 will be hosted by
ISIA, the “Higher School of Graphics and
Editorial Design”, (where also the social dinner will take place)
in the Monastry of Santa Chiara, via Santa Chiara 36, a few minutes walk
from the University.
Registration
The registration for the RC21
2015 conference on “The Ideal City: between Myth and Reality” to be held in
Urbino 27-29 August 2015 is open.
Please follow the link, click here. From May 16th, 2015 registration is possible as “Late
birds”.
Important: The RC21 “social dinner” will take
place at the courtyard of the Monastry of Santa Chiara now seat of ISIA, the “Higher School of Graphics and
Editorial Design” on
August 28th 2015.