18 Oct: Smart Cities and Smart Citizens
12:40pm – 2:00pm, Watershed
It is argued that smart cities – and the collection and application of Big Data – are critical for future aspects of city living, learning and working. From driverless cars, to dealing with health pollution and the renewal of democracy, smart cities are seen as solving society’s problems and promoting better productivity and economic growth. How do we make sure that smart cities involve citizens? How do we ensure that smart cities initiatives bring together commercial and community uses? How do we create smart citizens as well as smart cities? Is the public sector ready to deliver on the smart city potential? How do we maximise the value of Big Data at the same time as ensuring privacy and ethical use?
19 Oct: Sustainable Development Goals and Cities: An International Perspective
2-3pm, Watershed
Almost 200 countries signed up to the Sustainable Development Goals, which emerged from the largest ever UN consultation. Dubbed ‘the closest thing the world has to a strategy’, the goals cover 17 areas where major progress is needed by 2030, including climate change, tackling inequalities and decent jobs, and protecting life on land and below water. They also highlight the systemic links between these challenges. Cities will be critical to achieving the goals, as will be a strong collaborative approach.
19 Oct: Sustainability and the Future of Cities
3.30-5pm, Watershed
Cities can provide the answers on making urban areas and the world more sustainable. With high concentrations of people, cities can reduce carbon footprints by using transport and energy collectively and economically; through better working arrangements; and through housing people well. But cities also face enormous pressures: a housing crisis; growing poverty and inequality; migration and immigration pressures and controversies; and the lack of funding through austerity hampering many initiatives, undermining resilience and making cities less sustainable. How do we create sustainable cities?What powers must central government part with to allow cities to be free to act? How radical can cities be? How do we make sure that sustainability involves all? And how do we do this for all generations?
19 Oct: The Challenge of Inclusive Transformation: Towards a Sustainable City
6-8pm, Hamilton House, Stokes Croft
What does it take to genuinely transform a city – to change its behaviour, culture, infrastructure and collective ambition? Bristol is working to become a carbon neutral city by 2050. Even in this European Green Capital, such a transformation is challenged by decades of ingrained behaviour, dependence on the surrounding region and centuries of old infrastructure that work for some but not for all. In this workshop the vital role of inclusion in bringing about the transition to a sustainable city is explored. How do we build trust and achieve inclusivity? And how do we do so in a way that helps us become more radical and transformative?