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UCL academics and alumni debate the future of cities in New York

18 October 2016

Places are created by sex, religion and politics, according to Peter Rees, Professor of Places and City Planning, who was UCL’s star speaker at a New York alumni party and Campaign launch.

“Young people are drawn to big cities and it’s not for the jobs, it’s for the parties,” he observed, adding that he spends as much time walking in London with his architecture students as in the lecture theatre because, “London has more to teach than can be taught even within the walls of UCL.”

The former chief planner for the City of London also said that his proudest achievement was to make the square mile more alive: “When I arrived all the pubs shut at 8pm; now the latest nightclub stays open until 4am”.

But he added that “passive investment” is the biggest threat facing both London and New York, with “piles of safety deposit boxes” being built instead of homes where people live – “too much money of the wrong kind doing the wrong thing.”

He was joined by Dr Zoe Laughlin of the Institute of Making and Vice-Provost (Research) Professor David Price for a lively debate bringing together the future of cities and plans for UCL East. David praised the vibrant cultural scene of London and New York as a key reason why people want to be there, commenting that UCL should recognise that its contributions to arts, humanities and culture are as important as its contributions to science and medicine.

Looking to the future, Zoe demonstrated a chunk of self-healing concrete being developed as part of the Institute of Making’s self-healing cities project, which contains bacteria that wake up when the concrete gets wet and excrete material that heals tiny cracks.

Over 80 East Coast alumni joined the party, which also saw recognition of the US organisation set up 25 years ago to support UCL – the UCL Friends and Alumni Association. 

See photos from the evening on our flickr page, here: https://flic.kr/s/aHskFxfE8V