The New Towns of the 20th Century were built according to a blueprint designed by an architect or planner. Complete cities, rationally designed with a certain image of the city’s future in mind, projected a perfect equilibrium of infrastructure, housing, services and a social-economic and cultural identity. But what has happened after this initial phase? New plans are being made, the original design is being adjusted, inhabitants appropriate the city. While the planned city corresponds roughly to a top down approach, the unplanned city does with a bottom up approach.

The conference aims at drawing lessons for the future: by speculating how the planning of New Towns in the 21st Century can anticipate unplanned activities, be responsive to inhabitants’ input and to unexpected changes in political, economic or cultural context, thereby enriching both the planning profession and the city itself.

INTI invites researchers and professionals of a variety of disciplines (economists, historians, architects, planners, artists, sociologists, anthropologists, politicians, policy makers, etc.) to take part in our call for papers and to contribute to this conference. We are looking for a contribution which deals with the above subjects and includes one or more of the following issues:

A digital paper (appr. 200 words) can be sent to seminar@newtowninstitute.org before January 5th 2009.

Invited keynote speakers:

More information about the themes of the conference can be found here. Detailed information about registration, fees, etc. will follow on this website.

International New Town Institute

Schrijverstraat 1
1315 HW Almere
The Netherlands
info@newtowninstitute.org