Invitation to Sponsor - IMCL 2024
A unique opportunity to celebrate your organization, company or project with an international audience of distinguished researchers, city leaders and practitioners
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The 2024 IMCL conference will offer sponsors the option of purchasing tickets for themselves, or making tickets available as scholarships for qualified attendees in need of financial assistance. In addition, sponsors will be recognized with a number of benefits as described below.
There are also potential opportunities for presentations, tours, or other features of your work, depending on its relevance to the conference. (For example, builders, developers, architects, business owners and others are warmly invited to become sponsors, and showcase their work during the conference. I will be happy to personally discuss this and other opportunities with you in more detail.)
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The IMCL is a premier international leadership conference on urban quality of life since 1985, bringing together a number of the world’s most innovative and successful mayors, planners, economic development specialists, designers, developers, NGO officials, and researchers and scholars. Importantly, the IMCL conferences cover not just big cities but also small towns and suburbs, since such a large percentage of the world’s inhabitants live in these areas, and they are also the location for many of the world’s most pressing social, economic and environmental challenges.
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Our 61st IMCL conference (October 29-November 1, 2024) is titled, “The Ecology of Place: Learning from Nature, Culture, and History.” We can learn much from existing places that offer models of resilience in regional economies, healthy food and agriculture, healthy settlements, public spaces, and much more. The transformation of sprawling, fragmented, dysfunctional places into livable, walkable, sustainable neighborhoods remains an urgent challenge, especially so in an age of unprecedented rapid urbanization. Our next conference will be an important in-person gathering as we emerge from the pandemic and assess the many important lessons for a time of dynamic transformation for cities, towns, suburbs and countrysides.
We’ll gather in the beautiful city of Cortona, Italy, centrally located between Milan and Rome, and approximately 60 kilometers southeast of Florence. There is excellent rail service from Milan, Rome, Florence or Bologna, with a short bus ride up to the hill town from the station. Cortona offers a splendid case study of contemporary innovations in agriculture, land use, urban regeneration, and sustainable economic development at a range of urban scales, as well as powerful lessons about the continuing relevance of nature, culture and history in our work. There will be ample opportunities for study trips to explore complex (and useful) patterns of urban growth, public space, and place management.
Using Cortona, the other regions of Italy, and other case studies from other parts of the world, we’ll ask, what are the effective new tools and strategies to bring positive change to suburban as well as urban areas? What are the lessons from the pandemic for healthy and inclusive cities, and especially, their public spaces? What are the barriers that successful examples faced, and how did they overcome them? (Or if they didn’t, what can we learn from those lessons too?) What are their successes and lessons learned, and what can other places learn from them?
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And we’ll examine other related challenges for cities and towns today, including the crisis of affordable housing, the need for climate resilience and adaptation, promoting neighborhood health, achieving urban equity, promoting active mobility, age-friendly cities, neighborhoods for children, and much more. We’ll also consider the timeless requirements for human scale architecture and mixed-use urban fabric, for reviving city and town centers, and creating vibrant public places where people can gather for farmers markets, festivals, outdoor cafes and community social life.
We’ll hear from leading researchers about the best evidence on emerging challenges and effective methods, including financial tools, regulatory innovations, design strategies, and promising (and occasionally worrisome) new technologies. We’ll hear from practitioners on the front lines about their successes and challenges, and the latest research on effective approaches. We’ll learn the latest trends from around Europe, North America, and other parts of the world, in livable and sustainable development.
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We would be honored if you would consider becoming a sponsor for this important gathering. The information below covers the sponsorship levels and benefits. For more information, please email me personally at michael.mehaffy@livablecities.org, or call +1 503-250-4449.
Sincerely,
Michael W. Mehaffy, Ph.D., Executive Director
Suzanne C. and Henry L. Lennard Institute for Livable Cities
THE DETAILS
WHERE: Cortona, Italy
WHEN: October 27-November 1, 2024
WHAT: The International Making Cities Livable (IMCL) Conference is a venerable and prestigious annual gathering of some of the leading urban thinkers in the world today. It was founded in 1985 by Henry Lennard, a Viennese medical sociologist, and Suzanne Lennard, a British architectural scholar.
WHO: This conference will bring together over 100 outstanding delegates - elected officials, practitioners and scholars in planning, urban design, architecture, landscape architecture, land use development, transportation planning, public health, human development, and social sciences from around the world - to share experiences, ideas and expertise.
WHY: At this conference, we will examine creative strategies, tools and design solutions for achieving livable cities (and suburbs, and towns) for ALL. The conference will examine timely topics like zoning reform, neighborhood health, social capital, green cities, affordable housing, active mobility, gentrification, displacement and homelessness, age-friendly cities, resilience and adaptation, and other related issues.
SPONSOR: Your sponsorship will emphasize your organization’s dedication to the goals of making cities and suburbs more healthy, green and livable. It will help ensure the highest quality speakers on these topics, and carry this message to a broad international audience.
By bringing together a diverse group of delegates from the planning, urban design, public health and other fields, we will increase the understanding of why it is so important to achieve livable cities and suburbs, and highlight exemplary organizations, firms, and projects worldwide that are achieving these goals.
HOW: Please feel free to reach out to discuss the details with our director, Michael Mehaffy, at michael.mehaffy@livablecities.org.
The Lennard Institute for Livable Cities, Inc., is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit public benefit corporation registered in Indiana, USA. Donations are tax-deductible according to US charitable donation laws (please verify your own eligibility).
As Executive Director, I would like to personally thank you for considering a sponsorship!
Our goal in the IMCL conferences is to celebrate good work that is aligned with our mission, and share the knowledge of how it has been achieved. We do this through peer-to-peer exchanges at instructive case-study locales of transformation into more livable, ecological, equitable, beautiful cities, towns, and suburbs. We welcome the opportunity to celebrate your achievements as they relate to the conference topics, and disseminate knowledge of your organization or project, as well as your lessons learned.