Conference Themes

The Call for Proposals is now closed. The deadline to submit a proposal was Friday, March 1, 2024 (11:59 pm, PST).

General Information

We cordially invite leaders and practitioners from across the globe to join us for the 2nd Urbanism Next Europe Conference, happening on October 9-11, 2024, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The conference aims to delve deeper into the effects emerging technologies are having and will continue to have on urban landscapes and communities. Our focus will be on the Urbanism Next Framework (outlined below) and its main themes, including the impact of shared mobility technologies, the transition to public mobility, the ever-growing e-commerce and urban delivery sector, and the anticipated deployment of autonomous vehicles. The conference this year is a partnership between the Urbanism Next Center at the University of Oregon, TU Delft, TNO, and AMS. The conference is also being supported by POLIS, the European Commission, and the American Planning Association.

The Urbanism Next Europe conference offers 2 days of sessions and 1 day of workshops. Full sessions are 90 minutes long, include 3-5 speakers, and should include a variety of disciplines, sectors, and preferably countries. Workshops are 3 hours long, have at least 3 organizers, should include a variety of disciplines, sectors and preferably countries, can include some presentation, but should also include engaging activities with workshop participants. The quality of this conference is based on our well-prepared presentations, discussions, and conversations. Be aware that conferences participants are not required to submit a paper, but interested presenters can submit full papers to be considered for inclusion in the academic track.  

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Key Themes/Questions:

- Emerging Technologies & Forces of Change Themes

How are these emerging technologies (the forces of change) impacting land use, urban design, building design, transportation, and real estate?
Why do these changes matter? Specifically, what are the implications for equity, health and safety, the economy, and the environment?
How can these emerging technologies be harnessed towards climate neutrality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve health and wellbeing?
How do various forms of infrastructures shape the effects of these emerging technologies on our cities?
What technologies/innovations can scale, are scaling, or should scale? And which ones cannot, are not, or should not scale? Why? And how do business models, user uptake/interest, and realizable community benefits shape this?

- Stakeholder Involvement Themes / Co-creation with Citizens and Stakeholders

What role should governments play in the deployment and scaling of these technologies? And what are the roles of different levels of government?
How can cities, regions and community leaders address the challenges associated with these emerging technologies and take advantage of the opportunities they present?
How should the public and private sectors engage communities and with each other about the changes that are happening and what should they do about it?

- Enabling Technologies Themes

How might AV’s, ecommerce and shared mobility fundamentally change our urban fabric/urban structures?
How is Artificial Intelligence (AI) impacting these emerging technologies and their impacts?
Will Social eXtended Reality and Metaverse change the need for proximity? How might this impact cities?

- Transitions Themes / Challenges from Theory to Practice

How is emerging transportation technology and/or e-commerce impacting housing?
How do multiple transitions (housing, energy, mobility, digitization) interact and what visions do we have for our future cities and regions?
How should cities and buildings be redesigned in light of the changes we are seeing?
What truths are emerging around deployments – in terms of opportunities, barriers, use cases, scalability, and uptake?
What are the benefits/challenges of new models such as MaaS, mobility wallets, or mobility hubs?
What will be the future of car free or car low cities and what will the transition look like?

- Best Practices & Research Agenda Themes