About Programs Fellowship News Calendar
Loneliness, crime, and fractured communities are frequent symbols of city life and nine of the top 10 causes of death are related to poor urban design. Many cities have a fundamentally parasitic relationship with their surrounding ecosystems and exacerbate climate change and its symptoms. How can we make these urban environments better for both their populations and the planet?
This program will bring together an international, intergenerational, and interdisciplinary group of experts, activists, and changemakers. Together, they will develop new solutions, addressing the critical role parks, nature and public space play in shaping better cities and the different role cities need to play to protect and nourish the people, communities and environment within and around them.
Urban Environments are intended as spaces for people, and people are social animals. Yet, the design of so many towns and cities discourages meaningful human interaction and sense of belonging. Loneliness is being treated as an epidemic by governments around the world. Many cities are home to divided communities, separated by issues such as wealth, religion, politics, or race, with this intolerance further exacerbating a sense of isolation. Inequity, as well as these divisions, can lead people to feel, and often be, unsafe in their cities. According to the WHO, nine of the top 10 causes of death are either indirectly or directly caused by poor urban design or planning. Beyond this individual and city-wide scale, climate change threatens the resilience of cities, making life for its inhabitants more challenging.
By removing people and their relationships to each other from the center of designing and planning cities, we are curtailing opportunities for healthy lives on a healthy planet. Parks and other public spaces are the principal arenas for creating empathy and connection in our urban environments. These are places to enjoy nature, meet friends, experience difference, protest injustice, and celebrate together. How parks and other public spaces are created, managed, and developed over time influences the way we connect with and in these places. It can foster a sense of community, responsibility, and security or the reverse. The design and use of these parks and public spaces can make cities more climate-resilient as well as reducing their environmental impact.
Most people already live in cities – and this is a trend that will continue and accelerate. Changes to how we imagine and design our parks and public spaces will thus be essential to improve the quality and length of urban lives. Ensuring a strong, connected social fabric has the potential to improve health outcomes, reduce conflict, and seed a sense of civic responsibility.
This timely program will explore how we can create urban environments that support the social needs of their populations and encourage community cohesion rather than conflict.
If you are interested in taking part in the Parks for the Planet Forum 2021, please send an email explaining your motivations and what you would bring to the program to Dominic Regester and Jennifer Dunn.
This program seeks to:
This program will address the following questions:
Salzburg Global Seminar’s Parks for the Planet Forum seeks to bring together cross-sector and cross-generational change-makers from around the world to tackle complex challenges.
The program will bring together a group of approximately 40 participants, drawn from public, private and civil society sectors and may include policymakers, community activists, real estate developers, public health experts, investors, entrepreneurs, architects, engineers, designers, artists, media, and academics.
Participants must be open to sharing their ideas, knowledge, and experience, as well as to listening to others and exploring new approaches.
Some participants will themselves be conveners of similarly themed events, and the Parks for the Planet Forum is proud to be part of an emerging ecosystem of linked events that are working together to develop new ideas.
This highly interactive online program will be structured around a mix of thought-provoking presentations, curated conversations, informal interactions, knowledge exchange, and practical group work.
The process seeks to combine theory, policy and practice across sectoral silos, opening up new perspectives and intensive learning opportunities. Participants will also work intensively in focus groups, allowing for in-depth group work on key issues.
The program will take place to coincide with UN Habitat’s “Urban October”.
If you are interested in taking part in the Parks for the Planet Forum 2021, please send an email explaining your motivations and what you would bring to the program to Dominic Regester and Jennifer Dunn.
Introductions followed by a discussion on Loneliness and the City
Time: 14:00 – 16:30 (CET)
These informal gatherings offer a further (optional) opportunity for Fellows to network. They will take place online on the following dates: