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Bridging the Divide: Celebrating the City

The conference theme “Bridging the Divide: Celebrating the City” focuses on the mediating role of cities. Many cities are, to some degree, divided or contested. And cities themselves may play roles in reproducing identities that promote conflict between racial, ethnic, religious or national groups. A key question arises: How can innovative approaches to planning and governance help to bridge these divides?

We encourage papers and debate on the nature of these divides and the role that cities play in spanning them, through, for example, place-shaping, infrastructure development, governance, fostering of bridging social capital, capacity building, promoting environmental justice, reducing health disparities, and creating mechanisms for conflict resolution.

We hope to learn by building bridges in scholarship—sharing international perspectives and experiences on the role of cities in mediating conflict. A selection of high quality conference papers which address the conference theme will be considered for publication in an edited book.

Theme