Urban Studies

4/16 Friday, 8 a.m. – 1 p.m.
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17th Annual Symposium On Energy In The 21st Century
electric & carbon free transportation • solar inclusion in grid • climate justice
The award winning Symposium has been cited as one of the most important conferences on energy policy in New York and the Northeast. Attendees include major business, environmental, labor leaders, academics, architects, engineers, builders, laborers, elected officials, municipal planners, governmental agency staff, institutional planners, architects, lawyers, farmers, college and graduate students as well as many interested citizens.

This is our 17th year! As is our ecosystem, we are resilient and will not allow adversity to limit our quest for solutions to the climate crisis in which we find ourselves. Although in the short term we need to deal with the devastating coronavirus, we still must not forget the longer term threat to our world: global warming. The cutting edge information presented at the Symposium each year provides us with up to date information and tools to help create a carbon free and healthy world.

3/24 – 26, Wednesday – Friday
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international deep city latsis symposium
DEEP CITY: Climate Crisis, Democracy and the Digital
Big data, smart systems, machine learning – it is inevitable that these new technologies will change the way we study, build and manage our cities. At the same time resurgent interest in consensus and contributive action seems to oppose an exclusively data-driven urbanism. Is the opposition of machine intelligence and democracy inevitable, or are shared trajectories possible?

EPFL is Europe’s most cosmopolitan technical university. It welcomes students, professors and collaborators of more than 120 nationalities. EPFL collaborates with an important network of partners, including other universities and colleges, secondary schools and gymnasiums, industry and the economy, political circles and the general public, with the aim of having a real impact on society.

The Fondation Latsis Internationale is a non-profit, public benefit Foundation established in 1975. Based in Geneva, it is established to support scientists and research teams in recognition of their outstanding and innovative contributions to various scientific fields.

3/23, Tuesday, 1:15 p.m.
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columbia gsapp lectures in planning series
Urban Renewal Through Preservation and Rehabilitation
By 1965, nearly 800 American cities—located in almost every state across the country—sought to spur revitalization through the federal policy of urban renewal. Typically, their efforts took the form of large-scale demolition aimed at clearing space for new, modern construction. The Housing Act of 1954, however, introduced federal funding for rehabilitation-based approaches as well. This talk considers the motivations behind this more conservationist approach; the practical constraints to its wider-spread adoption; and its prevalence, character, and material impacts on the ground. The landmark case of Philadelphia’s Society Hill neighborhood, in particular, helps demonstrate how a preservation-based approach to urban renewal still transformed both the physical and social character of a community.

Francesca Russello Ammon is Associate Professor of City & Regional Planning and Historic Preservation at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design. A social and cultural historian of the built environment, she is the author of Bulldozer: Demolition and Clearance of the Postwar Landscape, winner of the 2017 Lewis Mumford Prize for the best book in American planning history. She is currently writing a history of postwar preservation and urban renewal based upon the Philadelphia neighborhood of Society Hill.

3/20 – 21, Saturday & Sunday
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40th annual conference of the center for medieval studies, fordham university
Medieval French Without Borders
This conference addresses the multilingual contact zones and social, cultural and literary contexts of exchange in which French featured between the ninth and the sixteenth centuries. A second language of several empires, a tongue of invaders, and an idiom spread by merchants, sailors, artisans, and pilgrims, French was a medium of both border-construction and border-crossing. The program includes papers on the dynamic relations between French and other languages including Arabic, Castilian, Dutch, English, German, Greek, Hebrew, Irish, Italian, Latin, Norse, Occitan, and Welsh. Such relations often exceed traditional explanatory frameworks of cultural prestige and the nation.

Co-sponsored with the Centre for Medieval Literature, University of Southern Denmark and University of York; the Orthodox Christian Studies Center, Fordham University; the Center for Jewish Studies, Fordham University; and the Program in Comparative Literature, Fordham University.

3/16 Tuesday, 5 p.m.
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museum of the city of new york
When Existence is Resistance: The History of Trans Activism in NYC
The past, present, and future of LGBTQ activism in New York has always been trans. From the Stonewall Uprising to building community for LGBTQ youth to fighting for civil rights, trans activists have been at the forefront of the movement to reconsider gender binaries and have advocated for safety, freedom, and power for all gender identities. Join MCNY for this free online workshop exploring the history and legacy of trans activism.

3/16 Tuesday, 1:15 p.m.
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columbia gsapp lectures in planning series
Opportunity Zones: A Baseline Evaluation in West Baltimore
This talk presents the findings from 65 interviews with community and government officials, program managers, developers, and fund managers about the federal Opportunity Zones (OZ) program in West Baltimore. It concludes with a set of short-term policy recommendations as well as a discussion of the broader federal policy framework that is necessary to attract durable and equitable investment into highly distressed neighborhoods.

Michael Snidal is a doctoral candidate in urban planning at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Snidal is also the Principal of Snidal Real Estate, a Baltimore-based construction and property management firm. He was formerly the director of neighborhood development for West Baltimore at the Baltimore Development Corporation. His work and opinions have been featured in academic and popular news sources such as the Baltimore Sun, the Washington Post, and the Financial Times.

3/5 Friday, 9 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
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loyola law review symposium 2021
Structural Racism and the Law: Exploring the Laws and Policies Creating and Sustaining Oppressive Systems
The past year has demonstrated to the public that the laws and policies of the United States are inherently racist and anti-Black. In the midst of a global pandemic, it was laid bare that the community suffering the greatest losses in terms of evictions, education, police brutality, and health outcomes was the Black community. Structural racism has created complex, yet often hidden, barriers that make it harder for Black people to succeed. These laws and policies might seem racially neutral on their face but often have insidious roots.

This symposium will:

1. highlight the historical connection between laws and policies and current structural racism in the United States;
2. identify the changes needed in various areas of law and policy— housing, city planning, criminal & juvenile justice, mass incarceration and education —to ensure that as a community, we work together to ensure that these laws are changed and equity is attained for all people.

2/17 Wednesday, 7 p.m.
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museum of the city of new york
Row Houses, Brownstones, and Townhouses: From Amsterdam to the South Bronx
Row houses, brownstones, townhouses—this residence of many names can be found in cities up and down the eastern seaboard, as well as internationally. These common sites, rarely given a second thought by city dwellers, have a deeper history behind them than meets the eye. Author, planner, and historian Charles Duff discusses his latest book The North Atlantic Cities with Monxo López, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Museum of the City of New York. The two will consider the role of row houses in developing the modern city—and compare New York to other metropolises like Boston, Washington, and Baltimore. López, an owner of a row house in the South Bronx will bring his own personal experience as a row house dweller to the conversation and consider how his experience has helped him define community, forge friendships (and make adversaries!), and beyond.

2/3 – 5, Wed 9 a.m. – Fri 3 p.m.
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world bank transport global practice / wri ross center for sustainable cities
Transforming Transportation 2021: Reimagining Safe And Resilient Mobility For Recovery
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the global transport sector and the people and businesses that rely on it in unprecedented ways. Across the globe, rethinking mobility is now a priority to build back better, with safer, more resilient and efficient transport systems for all. Transforming Transportation 2021 will bring together sustainable mobility world leaders from the public, private, academic and civil society spheres in a global virtual event to discuss the path forward.

2/2 Tuesday, 7 p.m.
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museum of the city of new york
Your Hometown Virtual Conversation with Darryl McDaniels of Run-DMC
In this "live" virtual version of the new podcast "Your Hometown," Darryl McDaniels of famed Queens-founded hip hop group Run-DMC talks with host Kevin Burke about growing up in New York City and its influence on his life and work.

1/28, Thursday, 7 – 8 p.m.
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cary institute of ecosystem studies
Restoring Resilient Tropical Forests
Join Cary Institute President Joshua Ginsberg for a virtual Cary Science Conversation with forest ecologist Sarah Batterman. Take a virtual trip to Panama and discover why healthy tropical forests are our climate allies, how tree species diversity regulates forest regrowth following disturbance, and science-based recipes for reforestation success. Sarah Batterman uses large-scale ecosystem experiments, field observations, and modeling to understand how tropical trees, their microbial partners, and nutrients impact tropical rainforest recovery from disturbance, response to environmental change, and ability to trap carbon. This understanding can inform policy makers and natural resource managers about potential carbon offsets in the tropics, and how to recover tropical forests to combat climate change.

1/28 Thursday, 12:30 p.m.
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fordham law speaker series 2021
Supercharging Environmental Justice in Crisis Times
Hayley Gorenberg is the Legal Director of NYLPI, where she guides the organization’s litigation and advocacy. Before joining NYLPI in 2018, Hayley was General Counsel and Deputy Legal Director of the national civil rights organization Lambda Legal, where she litigated landmark cases advancing the rights of LGBTQ people, including a range of pathbreaking matters involving disability rights, health access and discrimination against marginalized communities. Prior to that she ran a citywide task force at Legal Services for New York City, creating legal advocacy campaigns and training other lawyers and advocates to achieve high-impact results for low-income New Yorkers living with HIV. Hayley was named 2017 OUTLaw Alumna of the Year by New York University School of Law and received a 2018 Forger Award from the American Bar Association for “sustained excellence” advocating for the rights of people living with HIV. She has served as a Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow at Harvard and sits on Princeton University’s Gender and Sexuality Studies Advisory Council and the New York State Council on Women and Girls. Hayley earned her undergraduate degree from Princeton University, her law degree from New York University School of Law, and a certificate in change leadership from Cornell University.

Learn more about the A2J Initiative at Fordham Law.

1/27 Wednesday, 7 p.m.
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museum of the city of new york
Our Fair City Virtual Conversation: In-Between
Streetscape adaptations during the pandemic have demonstrated both possibilities and pitfalls. Now it’s time to move from improvisation to planning. How can New York plot a wholesale reorganization of the way we use streets—more than a quarter of the city’s land—less as a grid of channels to sluice vehicles around and more as a collective outdoors where eating, commuting, playing, selling, working, and innumerable other activities all coexist. For the third session in our series, Our Fair City: Building a More Equitable New York, critic and editor Justin Davidson talks to urban designer Justin Garrett Moore, landscape architect Kate Orff, and transit expert Shin-pei Tsay about how we can reimagine our public space.

1/26, Tuesday, 1:15 p.m.
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columbia gsapp lectures in planning series
Cities on the Move: On Turbulent Urbanism of Irregular Migration
The increasing fortification of national borders is producing new turbulent urban landscapes of irregular migration, which could be described as ‘cities on the move’. This is not only because certain cities make stopover points along ambitious trajectories of ‘people on the move’, but also because they create urban environments which are themselves rapidly ‘moving’ due to the opposite powers that work within and through them to hinder or facilitate irregular migration. This lecture discusses the urban spatial movements created by the efforts of global, regional, state and urban powers to regulate migration and by the forces opposing them, which together turn cities into contested arenas of unstable landing pads and jumping-off points along the increasingly blocked global routes of ‘unauthorized’ migration.

Irit Katz is a University Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Architecture and Urban Studies at the Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge, and a Bye-Fellow of Christ’s College. She has practiced as an architect in Tel Aviv and in London and has an interdisciplinary academic background in architecture, hermeneutics, cultural studies, and global policy. Her work focuses on built environments created and shaped in extreme conditions, with a particular emphasis on spaces of displacement, migration and refuge in camps and in cities. Her books include the co-edited Camps Revisited: Multifaceted Spatialities of a Modern Political Technology (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018) and the forthcoming The Common Camp: Spaces of Power and Resistance in Israel-Palestine (University of Minnesota Press).

1/25, Monday, 7 p.m.
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wild bird fund
"Mannahatta and The Welikia Atlas" with ecologist Eric Sanderson
What was our region's ecology like before New York City became a sprawling metropolis? Eric W. Sanderson of the Wildlife Conservation Society dedicated 15 years of research to uncovering the remarkably diverse, natural landscape and abundant community of wildlife and that sustained people for thousands of years before Europeans arrived on the scene in 1609...

In this virtual presentation, Dr. Sanderson will share his latest work on the historical ecology of New York City, expanding from the study of Mannahatta to all five boroughs. His multi-disciplinary approach combines historical detective work, computational geography and visualization, and insights from landscape ecology to help us imagine the remarkably biodiverse and productive setting of New York prior to its founding. In closing, he will answer questions from the Wild Bird Fund community and offer ideas on how The Welikia Atlas can be used to shape a more livable, sustainable, and beautiful city in the future. (Welikia means “my good home” in Lenape, the original Native American language of the NYC region.)

1/20 Wednesday, 9 – 10 a.m.
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urban land institute ny
ULI Madrid: The Power of Perception: Perceived Workplace Health, Safety and Wellbeing During the Covid-19 Pandemic
ULI Madrid, SGS & JLL will address the importance of maintaining workplace wellbeing and ensuring employees feel comfortable re-entering the office during times of uncertainty. This webinar will cover:

• How the COVID-19 pandemic has quickly accelerated workplace wellbeing trends
• Strategies for ensuring employees feel as safe as possible when re-occupying the workplace
• Strategies for ensuring employees feel as safe as possible when re-occupying the workplace Long-term trends we anticipate for the future of the commercial real estate industry

1/19, Thursday, 7 – 8 p.m.
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aiany center for architecture
Moshe Safdie: Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen
Person Place Thing is an interview show hosted by Randy Cohen based on the idea that people are particularly engaging when they speak, not directly about themselves, but about something they care about. Cohen’s guests talk about one person, one place, and one thing that is important to them. The result: surprising stories from great speakers. This installment of Person Place Thing will be a conversation with Moshe Safdie, Principle of Safdie Architects.

Moshe Safdie is an architect, urban planner, educator, theorist, and author. Over a celebrated 50-year career, Safdie has explored the essential principles of socially responsible design with a distinct visual language. A citizen of Israel, Canada, and the United States, Safdie graduated from McGill University. After apprenticing with Louis I. Kahn in Philadelphia, he returned to Montréal to oversee the master plan for the 1967 World Exhibition. In 1964, he established his own firm to realize Habitat ’67, an adaptation of his undergraduate thesis and a turning point in modern architecture.

1/13 Wednesday, 7 p.m.
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museum of the city of new york
American Utopia: David Byrne and Maira Kalman in Conversation
Former Talking Heads frontman and multimedia artist David Byrne and best-selling author, illustrator and artist Maira Kalman discuss their new collaboration, a book inspired by Byrne's award-winning musical American Utopia (Bloomsbury, October 2020). The two will sit down for a virtual conversation with WNYC's Alison Stewart about creating the book and their decades-long careers as New York artists.

1/12 Tuesday, 5 p.m.
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museum of the city of new york
Civil Rights in New York: From School Boycotts to ‘Beyond Vietnam’
From fighting employment discrimination to organizing for equitable schools to marching against police brutality, New Yorkers were at the forefront of the civil rights movement in the 20th century. In this online educator workshop, dive into the stories of New York’s network of activists including Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, Malcolm X, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and explore the history and legacy of Black activism in the city. In this program hosted by MCNY, you'll discover primary sources from the Activist New York and King in New York exhibitions, and enjoy a preview of the virtual field trip, The Civil Rights Movement in NYC.

1/12 Tuesday, 1:15 p.m.
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columbia gsapp lectures in planning series
Exploring the Impact of Displacement on Cities: a Framework for Analysis
Karen Jacobsen is the Henry J. Leir Professor in Global Migration at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and directs the Refugees in Towns Project at the Feinstein International Center. Professor Jacobsen’s current research explores urban displacement and global migration, with a focus on the livelihoods and financial resilience of migrants and refugees, and on climate- and environment-related mobility. She is currently at work on a book that examines the impact of displacement on cities. Her books include A View from Below: Conducting Research in Conflict Zones (Cambridge UP 2013 ) and The Economic Life of Refugees (Lynne Rienner, 2005).

11/18 Wednesday, 5 – 6:15 p.m.
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Pathways to Practice Series: Careers in Immigration and International Human Rights Law
The Leitner Center for International Law and Justice at Fordham Law School is an innovative Think-and-Do Tank that aims to make international human rights protections an everyday reality for marginalized communities around the world. Fordham Law alumni will discuss their experiences practicing in the immigration and international human rights fields. Co-sponsored with the Feerick Center for Social Justice.

11/13 Friday – 10 a.m.
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Pandemics through Time: The Renaissance Experience and Modern Pedagogy
Seminar and Workshop sponsored by Fordham History and the Renaissance Society of America.

10/26 Monday – 6 p.m.
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Comrade Sister: Caribbean Feminist Revisions of the Grenadian Revolution
Yuko Miki and Laurie Lambert's Freedom & Slavery Working Group will be presenting a book talk on Lambert's Comrade Sister: Caribbean Feminist Revisions of the Grenadian Revolution (University of Virginia Press, 2020). Dr. Lambert, Fordham Associate Professor of African & African American Studies, will be in conversation with Ronald Cummings, Assistant Professor English Language & Literature at Brock University.

10/14 Wednesday, 4 – 5:30 p.m.
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#FreeTheHair: How Black Hair is Transforming Civil Rights Laws and Movements
One of the world’s leading legal experts on “grooming codes discrimination,” and Founder of the #FreeTheHair campaign, Professor Wendy Greene will discuss her legal scholarship and public advocacy combating race-based discrimination African descendants suffer when they don natural hairstyles like twists, braids, afros, and locs. Professor Greene will also explore landmark U.S. legal reforms her scholarly activism is shaping, such as the C.R.O.W.N. Acts (Creating a Respectful and Open Workplace/World Acts), which redress this systematic form of racial discrimination and are transforming civil laws and discourse globally. This event is free and open to the public. CLE credits are available. CLE credit for the program has been approved in accordance with the requirements of the New York State CLE Board for a maximum of 1.5 non transitional credits: (1.5) Diversity Inclusion & Elimination of Bias. Presented by the Center on Race, Law and Justice and in conjunction with The Leitner Center, Fordham Black Law Students Association and Fordham Latin American Law Students Association.

10/14 Wednesday
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Designing Utopias
The NYU Urban Initiative presents Professor Rosemary Wakeman in a line up of eminent international scholars for this year’s multidisciplinary Urban Research Seminar. This event series is open to the greater NYU community in an effort to integrate NYU's faculty and students with a keen interest in cities.

10/7 Wednesday
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From Resettlement to Revolution: The Comuneros of Colonial Peru
Fordham Associate Professor of History Sarah Elizabeth Penry, author of The People Are King: The Making of an Indigenous Andean Politics (Oxford University Press, 2020), examines the community-based democracy that played a central role in the Age of Atlantic Revolutions and continues to galvanize indigenous movements in Bolivia today.

10/6 Tuesday
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Utopian New Towns Around the World: Past and Present
A talk by Professor Rosemary Wakeman from the School of Architecture and the Built Environment, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.

9/10 Thursday, 4 – 5:30 p.m.
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Unfinished Work: Black Lives Matter and Policing after the Protests
This event is presented in conjunction with the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice and the Fordham Black Law Students Association and co-sponsered by the Center on Race, Law and Justice.

9/10 Thursday
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Unmaking the Nation of Immigrants
A presentation with Carly Goodman, co-editor at Made by History at the Washington Post.

The recent panel discussion about Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) included Abe Unger, who touched on what a BID is and its overall value and limits; Rob Walsh, who discussed why BIDs were created; and Paul Kantor, who talked about the urban economy in terms of switching to small state governance and the inclusion of BIDs within these arrangements. After hearing their views, I think that there is much discussion to be had about the proper role of a BID within society. There is much discrepancy over the overall value of BIDs because they are a public-private hybrid.

This means that, in terms of public power, once they are formed BIDs have the power to tax the businesses and properties within their jurisdiction. In terms of private power, BIDs are considered private corporations run by a board through a local non-profit. Through the public-private hybrid, BIDs are able to tax publicly and to spend privately, which poses an accountability problem for some people.

Since BIDs are partially a public entity, they allow more people with different backgrounds to come to the table to discuss effective business practices. The privatization of BIDs allow them to branch a bit away from the city governments that they are partially a part of, as people cannot rely on city governments to have the creativity and beautification efforts that those that live in the neighborhood could. The public-private hybrid of BIDs allows them to be more successful than if a BID was simply a public or private entity.

Students who make their daily trek down East Fordham Road towards the Fordham College at Rose Hill campus undoubtedly characterize the region by encounters with the multicultural populations, the smell of food carts, and the sound of a tattoo parlor overtly calling your attention over the clamor of traffic. However, the component separating this area from other neighborhoods in the Bronx is its unique abundance of small businesses. The organization tasked with maintaining the renowned commercial retail stretch is known as the Fordham Road Business Improvement District (BID).

BIDs are privately owned, non-profit corporations that allocate publicly funded grants to revive and bolster small businesses inhabiting depreciated properties. These organizations require substantial resources to maintain storefronts and improve foot traffic. Last year alone, Fordham Road BID’s expenses totaled an astounding output of nearly one million dollars. A large portion of the resources was dedicated to park upkeep, sanitation, and pop-up markets promoting community engagement.

The practicality of these programs and supplemental services is dependent on the size of the designated commercial areas. Smaller institutions, such as the Jerome Gun Hill BID located north of the Grand Concourse, lack sufficient funds necessary to administer equivalent assistance to storeowners. Although they are a recent innovation, Business Improvement Districts are deserving of increased financial support to further cement their integral roles expanding stability and productivity in the city’s small businesses.

from m(i)j project gallery: 

• A Fine and Fertile Country: How America Mapped its Meals, Lena Denis & Danielle Brown, Harvard Map Collection.
• Counter-Mapping Evictions in NYC, Manon Vergerio, Ariana Allensworth & Ciera Dudley, Anti-Eviction Mapping Project.
• Durham Health Indicators Project, Tim Stallmann, Research Action Design, & John Killee, DataWorks NC.
• Participatory Mapping to Reduce Urban Risk in Lima, Rita Lambert, The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, University College London.
• Recalibrating Queens: Re(sident)-centering the development debate in LIC, Kristen Hackett, The Graduate Center, CUNY.
• Screening Surveillance: Mapping, Monitoring, and Future-Ing Big Data Surveillance, sava saheli singh, University of Ottawa.
• Siege of Antioch Project, W. Tanner Smoot & Douglass Hamilton, Fordham University, Center for Medieval Studies.
• ToxiCity: Mapping Pollution in North Brooklyn, Jesse Braden, Spatial Analysis and Visualization Initiative, & Anthony Buissereth, North Brooklyn Neighbors.
• unARchived, Abraham Avnisan, Kent State University, Christian Anderson, University of Washington Bothell, & Amir Sheikh, Independent Scholar.