The Idea of the Conference

North American cities are facing transformational challenges in sustainability, economy, and urban management. Sustainability imperatives, the call for climate action, the prospect of a quickly shifting energy future, pressure for new approaches in almost every urban system, and the shock of the economic downturn have North American cities scrambling to comprehend and manage the shift toward ecological practices and greater resilience.

At the heart of this Resilient Cities conference are these ideas:

• Cities are powerful agents for climate action and ecological governance;
• It's crucial to develop powerful new sustainability collaborations between business, civic leadership and the communities that make up our cities;
• The emergent green economy, new green jobs, and a green way of doing old jobs together represent an important new economic development/training/education strategy;
• The concepts and practices of ecological citizenship need to spread more thoroughly through all segments of society and all constituencies;
• Cities-as social and political units-are leading the way in sustainability innovation in the areas of governance, policy and implementation. This capacity, these skills, need to be perfected and widely shared;
• Practitioners from all sectors-technical professions, elected folks, developers, non-profit agencies, post-secondary institutions, community leadership, etc.-are in on this reawakening to commons values. It's time to maximize collaboration and partnerships. It's time for the whole city to go green.

The conference will explore strategies to make cities more robust, and will enable participants to advance their thinking on three key subjects:

• innovation in sustainability governance and best current practices for managing sustainable urban systems;
• capturing opportunities in the green economy;
• strategies for building widespread sustainability collaborations that engage the community level.

The program will emphasize integrated thinking on these themes and will place a large project of work in front of the conference community: to build a portrait of urban life in which sustainable urban practices, economy, and engaged communities are successfully aligned. Both ecology and economy share the Greek word for home. We need to link sustainability to ideas of safety, security and opportunity, and we need fresh narratives and different metrics that will enable our urban societies to politically and socially support the shift to renewal and regeneration. We need to make choices that favour the long term and honour our sense of community.

Conference Assets
Vancouver, host city for the conference, is a living laboratory for many of the conference themes. The city-widely recognized for the urban planning miracle called "Vancouverism"-is also an urban sustainability leader that has worked hard to hold a durable public conversation, maintain a high level of community interest, and enlist a broad base of support for the sustainability agenda. In other words, Vancouver-the city and the region-has developed important expertise in ‘process architecture.'

Vancouver's successes and challenges will be a backdrop for the conference and the conference will assist Vancouver leadership in governance, business, education, organization and community to study opportunities to strategically promote Vancouver internationally as a centre of sustainability innovation and expertise.

Resilient Cities will feature speakers and thought leaders who are some of the most imaginative and compelling voices available to address the conference themes. Click here for more information.