The conference will bring together mayors, developers, researchers, practitioners, and NGO leaders to exchange peer-to-peer insights and share the most effective tools and strategies for building and revitalizing a new generation of livable cities
ABOVE: The beautiful venue, the Sant'Agostino Conference Center, and surrounding Cortona neighborhood.
CORTONA, ITALY - Over 100 attendees will gather here in just over two weeks for the International Making Cities Livable conference, representing cities, universities, NGOs, professional firms and development companies from every continent except Antarctica. Their focus is timely: to address the critical environmental, social and economic challenges facing cities and towns, and the opportunities to build more resilient, ecological, prosperous, equitable, beautiful -- in a word, livable -- cities, towns and suburbs.
Among the participants are the leaders of a number of landmark New Urbanism exemplars of livability, including Seaside, Florida; Poundbury, UK; Le Plessis-Robinson, France; I'on, South Carolina; Carmel, Indiana; and Las Catalinas, Guatemala, among others.
Leaders will include Robert Davis, developer of Seaside; Philippe Pemezec, mayor of Le Plessis-Robinson; Simon Conibear, long-time development manager of Poundbury; Vince Graham, developer of I'on; Sara Bega, Town Architect of Las Catalinas; and Jim Brainard, long-time mayor of Carmel, and now Board member of the Lennard Institute, producers of the IMCL conferences.
Joining them will be the principals of highly accomplished New Urbanist firms, including Liz Moule (co-founder of the Congress for the New Urbanism), Victor Dover (principal of Dover Kohl & Partners), Ashleigh Walton (Urban Design Associates); Hamid Iravani (Parsons); and Steve Mouzon (founder of the Urban Guild).
Also attending will be senior officials of a number of leading NGOs, including Laura Petrella, Head of Planning, Finance and Economy for UN-Habitat; Ben Bolgar, Senior Director of Projects for The King's Foundation in London; Carmelo Troccoli, Executive Director of the World Farmers' Market Coalition; Ryan Smolar and Madeleine Spencer of PlacemakingUS; and David Weaver and Brittany Croyle of weIMPACT Group.
They will also be joined by other mayors, senior planners and agency leaders, and by local officials including Cortona mayor Luciano Meoni, the Head of Culture and Tourism for Cortona, Francesco Attesti, and the Cultural Attaché from the US Embassy in Rome.
Other attendees include leading researchers from the University of Cambridge, Politecnico di Milano, EURAC Research Center in Bolzano, Nicolaus Copernicus University at Toruń, Harbin Institute of Technology, and the University of Notre Dame and its Rome Campus.
Registration for the 61st IMCL conference ends October 23rd. For more information, or to register: https://www.imcl.online/2024-cortona