The Path to Sustainable Development~Abstract Submission Deadline – 9th March 2014 - Fortaleza, Brazil

REGIONAL STUDIES ASSOCIATION
GLOBAL CONFERENCE 2014

Tweeting about this event #RSABrazil2014

From Vulnerable Places to Resilient Territories: The Path to Sustainable Development

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE – 9th March 2014

(Abstracts should be no more than 800 words)

Sunday 27^th - Wednesday 30^th April 2014

Fábrica de Negócios, Fortaleza, Brazil

In a world emerging from widespread crisis, some regions thrive and have been strengthened whilst others struggle to recover. Unforeseen events affect regions unevenly, presenting at once opportunities and challenges, prosperity and deprivation. How regions emerge from negative or positive shocks depends on their capacity to learn from their own experiences and from that of others, as we as their ability to adapt to new environments in a global economy.

The RSA 2014 Global Conference in Brazil will focus on thinking about paths, policies and ideas to strengthen vulnerable places and to develop cohesive and resilient territories. We acknowledge that only adaptive and flexible regions can succeed in an ever-changing world. This conference offers to all those who share an interest in regional and urban issues an opportunity to explore and discuss these key issues. Our discussions will be stimulated and enriched by the RSA’s well established traditional of embracing and accepting diverse perspective, disciplinary backgrounds and ideas.

· Clusters and Smart Specialisation

· Innovation and Knowledge

· Culture and Creativity as a Driver of Regional Growth and Employment

· Developing Rural and Peripheral Regions

· The Geography of Crime

· Labour Markets and Migration

· Land Use and the Real Estate Market

· Mega Events and Regional Development

· Regional Challenges in Health and Education

· Policies for Regional Growth and Development

· Regional Integration and Spillovers

· Spatial Justice and Inequalities

· Spatial Planning and Infrastructure

· Sustainability – Climate Change, Environment, Energy and Food Security

· The Geography of Finance

· Urbanisation and Cities

· Regional Policy in Emerging Economies

· Leading Regions

· Region to Region Trade

· Economic Development Strategies and Planning

The organisers welcome proposals for special sessions, themed workshops and innovative forms of networking and collaboration. If you would like to organise or offer a session to the conference please contact:

Academic Organisers:
Marco Crocco: crocco@cedeplar.ufmg.br
Pedro Amaral: pedrovma@cedeplar.ufmg.br
Pedro Marques: marques@geographie.uni-kiel.de
RSA Organiser Lesa Reynolds: lesa.reynolds@regionalstudies.org

For further information please visit:

regionalstudies.org

Regional Studies Association – 25 Clinton Place, Seaford, East Sussex, BN25 1NP

Tel: + 44 (0)1323 899 698 – Fax: + 44 (0)1323 899 798 – Email: events@regionalstudies.org Reg. Charity No. 1084165 – Reg. in England and Wales No. 4116288

The Art of Shaping the Metropolis - invitation to presentation March 4, 2014 - Washington, D.C. - Pedro B. Ortiz - a methodology of metropolitan development

The Emerging and Sustainable Cities Initiative (ESCI) cordially invites you to the presentation of

“The Art of Shaping the Metropolis”

A book by Pedro B. Ortiz, Senior Urban Consultant at the World Bank

Tuesday, March 4, 2014
(Originally scheduled for January 21, the presentation had to be rescheduled due to snow.)
Inter-American Development Bank, 1300 New York Ave NW, Washington DC.

12:30 p.m.

The Art of Shaping the Metropolis is a methodology of metropolitan development that helps planning professionals, public officials, and decision makers around the world plan for urban growth while preserving the historic nucleus of cities and the environment.

The author will present the book and share some of the outcomes of his methodology which has been successfully implemented in Madrid, and later replicated in Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.

Pedro Ortiz is currently a Senior Urban Consultant at the World Bank, Washington DC, and Visiting Professor on Metropolitan management at Milano Politecnico, Italy. Previously, he was Deputy Mayor of Madrid responsible for Strategic Planning and Director General of Madrid Regional Government for Urban and Metropolitan Planning. He was also the founder and Director of the Master’s program of Town Planning of the University King Juan Carlos of Madrid.

He combines his Academic background and his professional and political experience in this book.

More information about the book:

http://www.mcgrawhill.ca/professional/products/9780071817967/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJbbXKUef4U

If you wish to participate in the event, please RSVP at andreinas@iadb.org

Information about Pedro Ortiz

http://www.shapingthemetropolis.com

Ten Year Anniversary & Evolution - Regional Community Newsletter

Dear Readers –

Today is the ten year anniversary of the newsletter part of the Regions Work Initiative. It is, among other things, an effort to make the notion of "regional community” a viable term relating to community development at multi-jurisdictional scales

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This term comes from my experience as a regional planner for Virginia Planning District 7, then the Lord Fairfax Planning District Commission, where I began work in 1973

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By the early 1990’s, after two decades of being together as a regional commission, the region began to make progress on a number of joint projects including: management of a regional tire shredder, a Minimum Instream Flow Study for the North Fork of the Shenandoah River, a Civil War Battlefields Heritage plan, and VDOT funded rural transportation planning for the Planning Districts.

Part of that success had to do with a retreat from the fear that the Planning District Commission would become a directly elected Service District Commission, as had been provided for in the 1968 Virginia Area Development Act. Planning District Commissions which, at the start, could not implement programs were given that authority in legislation.

It was also assisted by my creation of the regional name "Northern Shenandoah Valley" in 1983. That became an everyday community identifier, now extensively used in business advertising.

Such regional community emergence was occurring in other Virginia Planning Districts, as well as for Regional Councils and Councils of Government throughout the U.S. in the 1990's.

In total I could see that, regions did work, yet a question was: "What's a region?" Academics and pundits of various stripes thought that the boundaries of existing regional councils were all wrong.

At the 1998 World Future Society Conference in Chicago I began to explore this question with the launch of the Regions Work Initiative, an individual effort.

November 11, 2003, the on-line newsletter Regional Community News was begun, noting:"The focus is on things done at the multi-jurisdiction regional level in the U.S. and around the world." It was based on the TransportationCommunications Newsletter published by Bernie Wagenblast, which is still going strong.

January 4, 2006, the term “Development" was added, since that appeared to be a key objective of regional efforts. In 2008, I committed to another five years, which bring us to this day, November 11, 2013.

In 2012, the effort became: Greater/Regional Community Motivation - News and Thought. Distribution of new stories shifted to a daily stream via Twitter, Flipboard and Google+. Thought pieces are on the blog and distributed via Yahoo Groups.

Another concept I sought to develop has been a geocode to enable aggregation of data by political geography, since alphabetic FIPS codes could not do so.

Success can be reported in this area with the upcoming publication of: “Prototype Global Coding of Political Geographies for Library and Data Management-Wikipedia Example” in the Papers of the Applied Geography Conferences. Materials are online http://goo.gl/7C0iIE.

These efforts will continue. There is a growing need for human unity and cooperation in the world. Community motive, the term used by Aldo Leopold in 1944, is another concept that would benefit the world, as it balances the lesser profit motive.

Feedback is always welcome.

Sincerely

Tom Christoffel, FeRSA, AICP, Editor