Penn IUR Announces New Paper Series in Celebration of World Cities Day

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA—The Penn Institute for Urban Research (Penn IUR), as part of its commitment to raising awareness about urbanization worldwide, is pleased to announce a new, forthcoming white paper series in celebration of World Cities Day 2017.

The United Nations has designated every October 31 as World Cities Day, with the intention of raising awareness and engagement on issues related to global urbanization, promoting cooperation among countries, addressing challenges of urbanization, and contributing to sustainable urban development around the world.

As part of its commitment to furthering these goals, Penn IUR is collaborating with the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy and Perry World House on a forthcoming white paper series, titled “UPENN: Current Research on Sustainable Urban Development.” The series will be released in November 2017, and will be showcased at the 2018 World Urban Forum (WUF), the world’s premier conference on urban issues, to be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in February 2018.

The white paper series will have a special focus on governance, energy, urban migration, and planning and land use. It will showcase research emanating from the three centers as well as from established and emerging Penn scholars affiliated with the centers, connecting Penn-based scholarship that addresses pressing issues of sustainable urbanization to leading policymakers and practitioners across the globe.

In celebration of World Cities Day 2017, Penn IUR will also be participating in a series of events held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. Penn IUR Co-Director Eugenie Birch will serve as the keynote speaker at a UN event titled Accessible Cities United where she will deliver a talk entitled “Enabling Future Cities to be Smart: Strategies to Prevent Urban Poverty and to Promote Inclusion and Well-Being.” Birch will also serve as a member of a panel at the launch of the Quito Papers and the New Urban Agenda (New York: Routledge 2017), and will join a second panel, “World Cities Day: Taking On the New Urban Agenda.”