Wroclaw University of Science and Technology is hosting an international conference: Centrality in the Age of Dispersion (centrality-dispersion.pwr.edu.pl).
We would like to invite you to take part in this academic event which is expected to result in a Special Issue of the journal.
Human settlement has always evolved around centres. Be it ancient Greek polis or 20th-century neighbourhoods – each of them focused on various human activities and formed a specific node in the geographical space. Changes in settlement structures were considered to be hierarchical and evolutionary. Those natural concentration mechanisms are undermined by various dispersion processes, having multiscalar and temporal character, and thus undermining the well-established settlement structures.
- What is the current centrality/dispersion balance in urban development?
- What is special about centrality and dispersion today?
- How to proceed with spatial management and urban decision-making in this complex and unstable environment?
The conference addresses the demand for a new approach in territorial governance, and planning and calls to gather experts from various scientific disciplines to present their research on urban centres and discuss dispersion occurrences.
CENTRAL THEMES:
- MEASUREMENT
- The concept of centrality in urban planning discourse
- Quantifying concentration and dispersion
- Complex centre–periphery relations in various scales and temporalities
- The role of ICT in evaluating and managing central functions
- DESIGNING URBAN AND SUBURBAN CENTRES
- Designing urban and suburban centres
- The role of public spaces in providing livability in urbanized and urbanizing areas
- Promoting historical and cultural heritage in urban centres
- Transforming urban centres: between depopulation, renewal and gentrification
- MODELS AND PARADIGMS
- The paradigm of Polycentric Development
- Urban centres as an inherent component of the Compact City concept
- Implementing Transit-Oriented principles in urban centres
- Self-contained communities and Urban Villages
- SPATIAL PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT
- Urban and suburban housing and its relation to urban centres
- Policy solutions for preventing dispersion
- Neighbourhoods and districts – in the search for functional self-containment
- Urban mobility on the way to urban centres
- GEOGRAPHY AND ECONOMY OF URBAN CENTRES
- Services distribution in urban areas
- Divided centres: the problem of trans-border regions
- Market versus planning: finding the balance in urban centres
- Mitigating traffic congestion
- THE POWER OF COMMUNITIES
- Spatial planning stakeholders: urban centres as a field of conflict
- Distribution of power in urban centres: expertise, authority, democracy, lobbying
- Community involvement in urban centres
- Quality of central spaces: functionality, perception and aesthetics
- GLOBAL CHALLENGES
- Continental, national, regional, urban and local service centres
- Glocality as a driving factor for development of urban centres
- Urban resilience: global warming, demographical crisis, water supply, war
- Urban/rural division: expansion, annexation, dissolution, decision-making
