Some 25 years ago Richard Rogers proposed an urban renaissance for cities across the UK. It was a moment of optimism for an urbanised world that, a decade ago, the United Nations identified had become the most common mode of living for peoples around the globe. The intervening years have brought many criticisms, with cities being seen as places of inequality, social injustice, unsustainability and sites of global health problems. They can, of course, also be places of economic opportunity, cultural creativity, intelligent design and cutting edge architecture and planning. They are, almost by definition, places of contradiction, contrast and contestation.

This conference is interested in diverse readings of the places we inhabit: their design, management, planning, social policies and cultural trends. It is interested in critiques of urban regeneration and creative economies, whether they come from the North or South America. It seeks debate on tourism and its impacts from across Europe, Asia and beyond. It welcomes examinations of the urban economies and smart cities of the digital age, whether stemming from Silicon Valley or Taiwan. It is concerned with urban health and cultural policies globally, from Africa to the Middle East. It is open to explorations of design agendas in the Pacific Rim, and the effects of climate change in both the Global South and North.

Engaging with these questions from the city of Manchester, UK, the conference location is a perfect example of the complexity that typifies urbanisation. A quintessential post-industrial city, it is the birth place of the industrial revolution. One of the UK’s most important historic locations, it is a gateway to the north of England and its iconic country estates and landscapes. A national and global transport hub, it is central to the UK economy and has been branded a ‘Northern Powerhouse’. However, alongside these successes are inevitably the long-term problems that typify cities the world over: gentrification, unsustainable design, social divisions, immigration and unaffordable housing, to name but a few.

From this location, the 16th Annual Livable Cities Conference, ‘Critiquing the Urban Renaissance’ explores the design, management and experience of life in cities globally from a range of disciplinary perspectives:

Architecture, Planning, Sociology, History, Sustainability, Public Health, Infrastructure, Culture and more.

The event welcomes case studies of innovative projects; overviews of active research programs, examples of historical surveys, insights into effective planning, and speculative papers on theoretical futures. The overall aim is to broaden the exchange of ideas on the varied issues that inform our understanding of life in cities as a complex and sometime contradictory phenomenon.