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young planning professionals platform urbego members understand the world of planning and how to operate in it we re talented curious innovative and ready to share our thoughts and new crossovers even though we re not big names or celebrities yet urbego means city-metropolis in esperanto an international language created to facilitate communication among people from different countries this is also what we want to achieve with this platform developing new thinking and common horizons urbego we believeto address that there is a need some specific issues of the planning profession deepen cultural and professional aspects promote collaboration between young planners and institutions enhance the potential of young planning professionals sensitize the community to the importance of the planning profession to meet people s needs through the improvement/enhancement of visibility and responsibility of young urban experts we see a general impoverishment of the planning debate and the uncertainty of the future of this profession a difficulty in recognizing a shared professional ethic and defining a new role for planners today as young planners and students we want to have a space in the professional debate in finding a common direction and clear priorities for planning activities at different levels to create a platform of young planning professionals to gain a new voice in the planning debate to engage new generations as agents of change in planning and create a platform for discussion and research on urban issues urbego means city-metropolis in esperanto which is an international language created to facilitate communication amongst people from different countries and become a second language common to everyone this is also what we want to achieve with the platform develop a new thinking and common horizons an important goal is to provoke a reflection on the future role of planners in the changing context this network is also an opportunity to share experiences and ideas among young planners and we decide

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students to develop a common direction for the profession to create synergies and work together on specific development projects and to create a new intermediary body which has the capacity and the commitment to develop collaboration or partnership with private actors or public institutions on specific projects reevaluate the traditional concepts of planning privileging the social project of the city that is in its original meaning polis a space of politics and relations in this process it is important to identify and include all the different identities that constitute the city react to rapid urban transformation it is necessary to go beyond the theories and try practical actions to address concrete and topical urban issues monitoring and evaluation are fundamental aspects of the profession to learn from the experiences and readjust theories and strategies redefine the priorities of planning and a new ethic of the profession redistribute the responsibilities of city development among the different actors the role of planner has to be redefined as a mediator that is able to listen to people s needs and expectations and translate them into competent and specific answers relocalise urban functions and organize the metropolitan area as a network of autonomous centers it is necessarily a different use of the territory meaning to live inhabit the existing city in a new way more than the design of new urban centers reuse traditional city places adapting the spaces to new needs uses and meanings reduce the ecological footprint of cities plan compact cities improve the efficiency of waste management promote sustainable mobility and energetic independence one of the main qualities of the future city is climate resilience information on best practices planning trends and new developments that can be applied to different projects to participate in the activities organized by ifhp and to organize a continuous program of meetings national scale events and an international meeting once a year workshops consultations and round-tables to develop a dialog among young professionals and private and public institutions to find opportunities for collaboration we propose the provision of up-to-date we planactivities which a program of promotes the passion ideas and proposals of young planners the general theme of the activities is related to the rethinking and updating of the garden cities concepts and the latouche program and it is discussed and defined year by year by the urbego members program of activities 2012-2013 the general theme will be adaptive planning just for urbego young planning professional award yppa programme this programme will be run and organized by ifhp and isocarp in connection with aesop and the european urban summer schools euss and through the dutch ministry for planning ministry of infrastructure and environment the aim of the award programme is to assemble and communicate inspiration for professional weplanning debate starting envision in the from a re-conceptualization of the garden cities theory and practices adapting the hypothesis of calm de-growth voluntary simplicity and the lively-city a sort of revolution in planning cultures is necessary to replace traditional development goals

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participate in andreas faludi s conference on 2nd of june at the universite paris iv sorbonne they will write an article for the ifhp blog about the themes emerging during the conference ifhp world congress a group of young planners are invited to participate in the field visit to gothenburg on the 17th of september we propose the organization of a workshop in gothenburg during the ifhp world congress 2012 gathering twenty young international urban professionals from different fields to work on an urban planning and development theme proposed by gothenburg municipality within the general framework of inclusive cities peter hall lecture urbego within the adaptive planning program will have a one or two day meeting in london in december/january 2013 before the peter hall lecture to discuss the conference theme and to define some questions that will be asked at the lecture as an alternative this meeting/discussion can take place on the blog and mr hall s answers can be communicated through social media blog you tube facebook un habitat webinar a forum about adaptive housing could take place on the urbego blog before the un habitat webinar the main issues/themes which come out of this online discussion will be addressed during the webinar planners by inviting young planning professionals to present their ideas projects plans and proposals about european spatial planning this award is for a three-year period 2012-2014 the theme in 2012 will be adaptive cities new ideas for action there will be some prize money available for the best entries urbego blog the blog could be used as a bottom-up source of ideas to develop and a space to share projects or interesting experiences moreover the blog could be used as a new space to promote ifhp initiatives targeted at a young audience to start this blog it is important to contact existing groups/networks of young planners within the netherlands and abroad junior consulting activity program within ifhp/urbego a group of students/young professionals from urbego that are supported or oriented by a mentor with experience on the subject matter another ifhp member this group can do some consulting job/project for some clients which could be an ifhp corporate member or other all this would be coordinated by the ifhp secretariat this program could constitute an enriching experience for students and at the same time clients receive useful ideas and recommendations for a very competitive price i.e significantly less than any other consulting firm would charge that covers students/mentors and coordinator expenses and a symbolic salary for the work itself urbego first meeting the urbego platform will organize a meeting a few months before the ifhp congress 2-3 days in duration possibly in january or february 2013 this meeting could be considered a preparatory moment to deepen some specific themes the proposed slogan for this event is think town today to underline the necessity to find a new way of thinking about urban issues the winners of the competition euss 2012 would be asked to present their research during this event the results of the meeting would become the urbego network s contributions to the centenary congress this meeting could be a workshop on a relevant case based on the plug-in experience in amsterdam or a tour in a city which presents a particular issue which is relevant for the discussion urbego in ifhp programs study visits the young planners professionals will be more and more involved in the ifhp professional visits and they will exchange their impressions and photographs in the ifhp blog on the 26-28th of april two young professionals have been recruited by the secretariat to participate in the april 2012 professional visit to wroclaw poland andreas faludi lecture urbego will be actively involved in the program lectures of eminent planners and planning related experts organized by ifhp-aesop two urbego members will

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les cahiers iau l institute d amenagement et d urbanisme d ille-de-france is organizing a colloquium on garden cities principles for this event it will publish a specific edition of les cahiers on the topic of garden cities in collaboration with ifhp it could be interesting to involve young planners and students in this project by calling for articles and research on the topic of garden cities a specific question could be to be to translate and reconceptualize the garden cities theories for contemporary contexts especially the european metropolis implementation lab the adaptive city working group has developed methods for the implementation lab in which topical experts from ifhp are invited to work with local authorities on a spatial problem a typical implementation lab takes place over three days and results in useful and implementable solutions for the sites in question during the period 2012-2013 the participation of urbego members will be prioritized in one implementation lab centenary congress on the occasion of the ifhp centenary congress-london june 8-11th 2013 urbego could contribute with a specific research project on the proposed general theme adaptive planning the urbego could organize another meeting before the ifhp congress this meeting could be considered as a preparatory moment to deepen some specific themes that could be presented at the centenary congress to make the presence of urbego visible and active observer status ifhp council ifhp recognizes that few young people 35 years old are members of the organization the lack of young urban professionals and students means that ifhp is missing out on the creative ideas inspiration enthusiasm and up-to-date knowledge that young people can contribute furthermore the knowledge and experience of the older generation will be lost without a younger generation to act as recipients for this reason after the centenary congress it is important to include one or two representatives of the urbego within the ifhp council this choice has a strong metaphorical meaning a sort of passing of the to assure the continuity and permanence of the federation in its second century working groups for the reasons mentioned above the ifhp working groups spontaneous city climate resilient cities housing mobility and the city should strategically involve at least three new young members in their programs in this way the young generations can contribute to the content frame of the ifhp and become a bridge between working groups research and urbego activities for suggestions questions giulia maci g.maci@ifhp.org denis burke d.burke@ifhp.org the urbego network is facilitated by international federation for housing and planning www.ifhp.org +31 70 3244557 linkedin group young urban planning professionals and students yups

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