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The Unequal City Workshop - CCE1 403 In-Person
HOSTED IN CEE1 403
Inequalities that have risen have reached levels that signal significant failures of prevalent market and accumulation-based social organisation. While cities remain engines of economic growth and innovation, they concentrate wealth and deprivation in increasingly polarised spatial patterns. The contrasts between places where value is produced, lived, consumed, or depleted not only reveal everyday geographies of unequal cities, but also make abstract political-economic processes tangible which fuelled discontent and populism. Cities concentrate educational institutions, labour markets, public infrastructure, and civic life in ways that, at their best, offer individuals from all backgrounds the conditions to develop capabilities, build networks, and pursue meaningful lives. It is precisely because cities offer such richness of opportunity that the unequal distribution of access to these opportunities represents so profound an injustice.
While rising urban inequalities are no longer contested, what remains unsolved is what needs to be done to reduce them. This workshop uses the city, and the right of citizens to what the city has to offer, as two complementary lenses through which to examine inequalities. It is believed that the gaze at unequal city across economy, transport, health, security, and sustainability provides a vivid and accessible entry point into reflecting contemporary growth models: what kinds of growth have been prioritised? Has aggregate expansion come at the expense of redistributive capacity? Is there any room for redistributive growth? What enables certain cities to pursue more equitable pathways and progressive experiments while maintaining economic vitality?
Bringing together scholars and policy makers, this workshop seeks to move beyond diagnosing urban inequality towards rethinking growth – its logics, its spatial expressions, and its political possibilities. By grounding these issues in the lived realities of unequal city, we aim to open space for more constructive dialogue between academic analysis and transformative practices.
Workshop Schedule
Workshop Schedule
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Time |
Session |
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09:30-09:45 |
Welcome and Introduction including introduction to the “Wall of Questions” participants are invited to add questions throughout the day |
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09:45-10:30 |
Dr. Kirsteen Paton (University of Glasgow) Housing Justice from Below: The Political Power of Working-Class Knowledge for a More Equal City |
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10:30-11:15 |
Dr. Lakshmi Priya Rajendran (University College London) Narrating Inequality: Storytelling as Method for Moving Beyond Metrics in the Unequal City |
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11:15-12:00 |
Prof. Rowland Atkinson (University of Sheffield) How wealth produces urban inequality |
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12:00-12:15 |
Coffee Break |
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12:15-13:00 |
Urban Café: Spheres of Unequal City (choose one table) |
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Café Table A: Health Inequalities |
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Café Table B: Unequal Mobilities |
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Café Table C: Inequalities and Sustainability |
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Café Table D: Inequalities and Safety |
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13:00-14:00 |
Lunch Break and Networking participants are encouraged to visit and add to the Wall of Questions |
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13:45-14:45 |
Panel Discussion (Panel members include Prof. Peter Tyler, University of Cambridge, Prof. Joyce Liddle from Durham University, Prof. Greta Defeyter from Northumbria University and Marianne O'Sullivan from North East Combined Authority) |
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14:45-15:15 |
Facing the Wall of Questions open floor – starting with panel - to address questions accumulated |
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15:15-15:30 |
Closing Remarks and Wrap-up |
Queries
Please contact Ozge Dilaver (ozge.dilaver@northumbria.ac.uk) or Wenying Fu (wenying.fu@northumbria.ac.uk) for further information about this event.