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Source
Fakulta architektury ČVUT v Praze
Publisher
Tisková zpráva
08.07.2015 21:50
The Faculty of Architecture at the Czech Technical University in Prague will host the largest annual meeting of experts in spatial planning and urbanism, the Congress of the Association of European Schools of Planning AESOP 2015, from July 13 to 16, 2015. The theme of this year's congress will be the search for responsibility.

Our cities are expanding, and the distances that most of their inhabitants must travel for work, services, and entertainment are continuously increasing. Funding for maintaining and improving transportation, engineering networks, and public services is decreasing. The wealthy are concentrating into gated communities, while others may remain trapped in social and ethnic ghettos.

This is just a brief description of the problems society is facing, which urban and regional management could effectively address through planning. However, this is controlled and often influenced by unbalanced relationships between public administration and the private sector, and the space for professionals to operate is dissolving and mixing with business interests. The gap between powers and the sense of responsibility is widening. Who should take responsibility for how the environment around us will look in the future?

„AESOP is a very suitable forum for this discussion. It brings together academics and young researchers from 150 European schools of urbanism and planning, that is, most of the people who are professionally close to what is happening with European cities and regions“, states Prof. Karel Maier, head of the Department of Spatial Planning at the Faculty of Architecture of the Czech Technical University in Prague.

The congress is organized by the Faculty of Architecture at the Czech Technical University in Prague in collaboration with the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava. The congress is under the patronage of the Minister for Regional Development of the Czech Republic, the Mayor of Prague, the Czech Chamber of Architects, and the Association for Urbanism and Spatial Planning of the Czech Republic. The Institute of Planning and Development of the City of Prague is also a partner of the congress.

The congress will be attended by over 650 delegates mainly from European countries, but also from China, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Canada, Latin America, India, and Russia. Contributions and discussions will address issues of community cohesion in a multicultural world, ethics, responsibility and commitments of governments and professionals, the social dimension of urbanism, responsible economies, and the public financing of cities, or culture, entertainment, and tourism as a remedy or a threat.

How has planning changed in post-socialist countries over the last 25 years, and what path should Eastern Europe take? This will be the subject of the lecture by the main guest of the congress, Iván Tosics from the Metropolitan Research Institute in Budapest. „In several founding EU member states, the flexibility of public institutions to support grassroots civic initiatives is increasing. This approach is still lacking in post-communist countries of Central Europe. New forms of governance need to be introduced that will be based on enhancing citizens' rights and participation from all relevant stakeholders“, suggests the Hungarian mathematician, sociologist, and expert on housing and regional policy of the European Union.

The collaboration between state administration and the public sector will also be a topic for a panel discussion, which will take place on Tuesday July 14, 2015 at 19:00 at the Žižkov Freight Station and will complement the scientific program of the conference. The utilization of civic initiatives, the role of local governments, and urban planners in urban planning will be debated by: Matěj Stropnický (councilor for spatial development), Eric Swyngedouw (professor of geography at the University of Manchester), Willemijn Lofvers (architect and founder of Bureau Lofvers), Frank Othengrafen (professor of Regional and Spatial Planning at the University of Hanover). The discussion will be moderated by Petr Návrat, head of the participation team in city planning at the Institute of Planning and Development.

After the discussion, at 21:30, there will be a screening of the film “Plan” (Czech Republic, 2014, 90 min, directed by Benjamin Tuček). The discussion and film screening are open to the public. The working language will be English.
More about the Congress of the Association of European Schools of Planning AESOP 2015 can be found at http://www.aesop2015.eu/

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