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Event Details
Critiquing the Urban Renaissance
Design, Architecture, Planning Conference 2026
Dates: 17-19June, 2026
University of Salford, Manchester
Event Partners:
AMPS; UCL Press; Cambridge Scholars Publishing
https://amps-research.com/conference/manchester-livable-cities/
Call:
Some 25 years ago Richard Rogers proposed an urban renaissance for cities across the UK. It was a moment of optimism for an urbanised world that, a decade ago, the United Nations identified had become the most common mode of living for peoples around the globe. The intervening years have brought many criticisms, with cities being seen as places of inequality, social injustice, unsustainability and sites of global health problems. They can, of course, also be places of cultural creativity, intelligent design and cutting edge architecture and planning. They are, almost by definition, places of contradiction, contrast and contestation.
This conference is interested in diverse readings of the design of the buildings and cities in which we live. It is interested in critiques of urban regeneration and creative economies, whether they come from the North or South America. It seeks debate on tourism and its impacts from across Europe, Asia and beyond. It welcomes examinations of the urban economies and smart cities of the digital age, whether stemming from Silicon Valley or Taiwan. It is open to explorations of design agendas in the Pacific Rim, and the effects of climate change in both the Global South and North.
Engaging with these questions from the city of Manchester, UK, the conference location is a perfect example of the complexity that typifies urbanisation. A quintessential post-industrial city, it is the birth place of the industrial revolution. One of the UK’s most important historic locations, it is a gateway to the north of England and its iconic country estates and landscapes. A national and global transport hub, it is central to the UK economy and has been branded a ‘Northern Powerhouse’. However, alongside these successes are inevitably the long-term problems that typify cities the world over: gentrification, unsustainable design, social divisions and unaffordable housing, to name but a few.
From this location, the 16th Annual Livable Cities Conference, ‘Critiquing the Urban Renaissance’ explores how we design the buildings, parks, streets and public spaces of cities globally.
Abstracts: 1 April, 2026
https://amps-research.com/conference/manchester-livable-cities/
