COVID-19 and the Future of Our Cities: Green Architecture

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Unlike any other moment in recent memory, the importance of accessibility to urban green spaces and public realms has taken on new significance. Their proven benefits for improving air quality, storm water management, local economies, and social cohesion have long been documented. But how do we perceive the design phase and implementation of publicly accessible realms in growing cities in a post-COVID-19 world? How do we link public realms to public health strategies?

Event Recording

Event Recording

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The Series:

COVID-19 has hit cities particularly hard, some of them harder than others. The extent to which cities have been affected depends on a variety of factors including, first and foremost, the approaches taken to address the outbreak. However, the current pandemic also highlights an urban fabric that is divided along class, gender, race, and income as much as it reveals the vulnerability of supply chains, the strengths and weaknesses of social cohesion in urban neighborhoods, the need for mass transportation alternatives, and the increasingly blurred boundaries between work and residential environments, among others.

Once they reemerge from their lockdowns, what will cities look like in the months and years to come? How do we make our cities more resilient vis-à-vis future pandemics and the consequences of climate change? This series of online conversations brings together urban planners, community leaders as well as experts in fields such as public health, sociology, logistics and transportation to help us understand how COVID-19 will affect how we think about the city of tomorrow.

Watch the recording of the first web-talk in the series.


Moderator
Alexander Mirescu
Founder and CEO, RESILIÉNT/CITY
Fellow, World Economic Forum – Healthy Cities and Communities Platform

Speakers
Sebastian Schlecht
Architect AKNW
Head of Strategic Management, Environment, Traffic and Sports City of Essen – Green Capital of Europe 2017

Wolfram Hoefer
Associate Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Director, Center for Urban Environmental Sustainability

Josh Radoff
Senior Vice President, WSP USA

Introductory Remarks
Consul General David Gill
German Consulate General in New York

Event Information

July 28, 2020, 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM

Live Online
Organizer(s): University Alliance Ruhr, ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, DWIH New York