Cities and the Anthropocene
Seminar and debate
The CCCB and the British Academy are jointly organising the project “Cities and the Anthropocene: A Mediterranean Perspective”, which will bring together experts from several countries to discuss the urgent need to transform cities in order to make a sustainable future possible.
In a planet gravely affected by the human footprint and, at the same time, being urbanised at an unprecedented rate, cities will continue to be major flashpoints of tensions. Climate-related catastrophes and the migrations resulting from them, mass tourism, housing shortages, spatial segregation, excess waste, and the harmful impact of contamination on the environment and people are just a few of the problems we must urgently deal with if we are to prevent wholesale collapse.
However, the urban world can also drive a change of paradigm. Re-balancing and reshaping cities will be essential both for moving towards a sustainable lifestyle and for responding to the already irreversible effects of the Anthropocene. In the specific case of Mediterranean cities, this restructuring will have to provide solutions for adverse phenomena like drought or rising temperatures while still preserving the advantages of the traditional model of the mixed, compact city.
On 4 and 5 July “Cities and the Anthropocene” will bring together in Barcelona some twenty international experts who will discuss the main challenges faced by cities today. The first event of the programme will take place in the afternoon of 4 July with a conversation between Suzanne Hall, Nigel Thrift and Francesc Muñoz, who will present the key concepts of the new urban realities. On 5 July a seminar with several panel sessions will offer more detailed discussion of the various aspects involved.
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