The Bartlett School of Planning and the School of Government (PKU) Global Urban Seminar Series

The Bartlett School of Planning (UCL) and the School of Government (PKU) Global Urban Seminar Series aims to explore some of the key pressing challenges affecting cities, globally, in the face on accelerated changes. These interdisciplinary online seminars are aimed at an audience of academics, practitioners and students from a wide range of fields but with a key interest in cities, policies and urban governance. There are developed with the goal of broadening current understandings, stimulate new ideas and debates and develop new areas for knowledge sharing. 

The theme of our inaugural seminar is Global Cities in the Face of Uncertainties. Global cities are understood to have evolved and transformed over time in response to numerous and often accumulated challenges involving, among other things, climate, housing affordability, economic growth, increasing socio-economic vulnerabilities, changing demographics and more recently unprecedented health emergencies and post pandemic recovery. Whereas challenges that global cities experience are often similar, the way cities address and govern uncertainties differs a lot. During this seminar, we will reflect on achievements and challenges to date and discuss the new future directions of travel for people, places and policy, in the UK and in China.  

We are welcoming two international scholars:  

• Professor Yvonne Rydin, Bartlett School of Planning UCL who will be talking about Planning without Growth based on her latest eponym book (published by Policy Press in February 2025). 
• Professor Li Tian, School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, who will look at Beyond Marketization and Welfarization: Pathways for Empowering Social Forces in the Self-Renewal of Ageing Neighbourhoods in China.