The Ideal City - Master Plans and Dystopian Realities
The emerging coherence of smart and democratic cities

The purpose of this event is to highlight a convergence of trends in the rapidly expanding ‘smart cities’ movement. Trends that recognize the need for science and democracy across all domains of urban life. As work on the smart cities of the future iterates, what does a blueprint of an ideal city look like, and what are the higher order principles that must be built in?

Moderator:
Masoud Ghandehari, New York University

Panelists:

• Gabor Betegh, Professor of Ancient Philosophy, Cambridge University
• Alexander Shermansong, NYU Wagner School of Public Service
• Jill Harris, Policy and Strategy Counsel, Kings County District Attorney
• Kazuhiko Ito, Senior Environmental Epidemiologist, NYC Department of Health
• Devyn Humphrey, Axis Partners, New York City
• Kian Tajbakhsh, Columbia University, Author, The Promise of the City
• Jackie Lu, Director of Analytics, New York City Department of Parks
• Tapan Parikh, Associate Professor, Information Science, Cornell Technion

We will converge our thinking on the following questions:

How do we integrate and plan for social and environmental resilience in cities?

What is the role of technology and data in adaptive strategies?

How does the ideal city define and express our social contract?

How do we reconcile this social contract with marginalized or disadvantaged communities?

In our plans for an Ideal City, how is justice, human virtue and enlightened governance manifested?

How do our systems of governance limit or expand our agency?

How does collaborative consumption and the sharing economy serve the Ideal City?

What are our best plans for the Ideal City?

How are the cities of the future planning for the Ideal?

Schedule: 5:00 Reception, Panel and Discussion at 5:30 - 7:30pm

You can invite friends and colleagues by forwarding this invitation or (url).

How you can engage: We invite your participation before the event, to express the questions or issues you would like addressed in the panel discussion send your comments in advance, either as text or as an audio recording to idealcityinfo@gmail.com, and let us know if you would like it posted on the “Perspectives” page on the Ideal Cities website.

Registered guest list will be in the lobby, Auditorium is on the 2nd floor.