09:15 – 09:45
Interrogating the compact city
– Per Gunnar Røe
Compact city strategies have become part of the policy and planning orthodoxy in dealing with climate change and other sustainability challenges, informed by the past decades of empirical research. However, the social implications of these strategies, and the way they are played out within the current political economy, are increasingly scrutinized. In this talk Røe argue that there is a need to interrogate and diversify the understandings of compact urbanism in ways that advance social and ecological justice. As the compact city primarily has been conceived through the lens of territorially bounded physical urban form, many of its social, political, and ecological implications are overlooked. In this talk a renewed agenda for compact urbanism is suggested by bridging socio-material and relational approaches, focusing on strategies for commoning the compact city, creating social infrastructures and dealing with the metabolism of compact cities.
About the speaker:
Per Gunnar Røe is Professor of Human Geography at the University of Oslo, Department of Sociology and Human Geography. His current research focuses on the social implications of urban sustainability and planning, and how to develop equitable and socially inclusive strategies. He is leading a research group focusing on Energy Flows and Spaces within Include, a research center for socially inclusive energy transition.