The Cities Centre at the University of Toronto recently hosted a two day workshop on “Finding Connections Towards a Holistic View of City Systems“, as an NSERC Partnership Workshop to bring together academics, industry and government participants. I was privileged to be invited as one of the 30 attendees to discuss potential future collaborations through a systems approach to urban issues. The meeting was hosted by professors Steve Easterbrook and Eric J. Miller, and coordinated by Kathryn Grond.
On the first day, we had three speakers set stage for discussion:
- Jeb Brugmann, founding partner of The Next Practice (with C.K. Prahalad) and author of Welcome to the Urban Revolution , suggested thinking about urbanization as “The Productive City“.
- Andrew Wisdom, Australasia leader for Masterplanning and Economics and Planning at Arup, described the possibility of a sustaincentric paradigm on “Cities as Systems as Systems“, with many examples from the Melbourne region.
- David Miller, former mayor of the City of Toronto (2003-2010) and now Counsel, International Business and Sustainability with Aird and Berlis LLC, spoke on “Finding the Connections Between Academia and Government that Make Change Happen” with a description about how municipal politicians make decisions, and some of the programs that were initiated during his tenure.
Groups broke out for an exercise developing stories using Drivers of Change cards as triggers, and then writing some future headlines of outcomes that might be a result of future research.… Read more (in a new tab)
The Cities Centre at the University of Toronto recently hosted a two day workshop on “Finding Connections Towards a Holistic View of City Systems“, as an NSERC Partnership Workshop to bring together academics, industry and government participants. I was privileged to be invited as one of the 30 attendees to discuss potential future collaborations through a systems approach to urban issues. The meeting was hosted by professors Steve Easterbrook and Eric J. Miller, and coordinated by Kathryn Grond.
On the first day, we had three speakers set stage for discussion:
- Jeb Brugmann, founding partner of The Next Practice (with C.K. Prahalad) and author of Welcome to the Urban Revolution , suggested thinking about urbanization as “The Productive City“.
- Andrew Wisdom, Australasia leader for Masterplanning and Economics and Planning at Arup, described the possibility of a sustaincentric paradigm on “Cities as Systems as Systems“, with many examples from the Melbourne region.
- David Miller, former mayor of the City of Toronto (2003-2010) and now Counsel, International Business and Sustainability with Aird and Berlis LLC, spoke on “Finding the Connections Between Academia and Government that Make Change Happen” with a description about how municipal politicians make decisions, and some of the programs that were initiated during his tenure.
Groups broke out for an exercise developing stories using Drivers of Change cards as triggers, and then writing some future headlines of outcomes that might be a result of future research.… Read more (in a new tab)
