This seminar is a panel discussion of City-level Case Studies that examine transformative urban change in selected cities of the global South. The Case Studies are a part of the World Resources Report: Towards a More Equal City. Authors of city-level cases present on the transformative change in their case study city, explain why these changes are "transformative", and describe the most important enablers that have helped sustain this transformative change. Case Study cities include Ahmedabad and Pune in India; Belo Horizonte and Porto Alegre in Brazil; Guadalajara, Mexico; Johannesburg, South Africa; Kampala, Uganda; and Surabaya, Indonesia. The broader discussion focuses on connections, comparability and patterns of change across cities by answering the following questions:
• Are there common triggers for the progressive initiatives and transformative change across these cities?
• Are there any common enabling and inhibiting conditions?
• Are there common patterns in the way actors came together to form coalitions for change?
• Have the circumstances that stalled these cities in their efforts towards transformative change been similar or different?
• Are there similarities in the way positive changes have been institutionalized in these cities?
• What are some suggestions we could consider providing urban change agents in these or other cities to unleash a positive cycle of transformative change?
Speakers Include: Rebecca Abers - is associate professor of political science at the University of Brasília. Ashok Das - is an assistant professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. Lalitha Kamath - is with the Centre for Urban Policy and Governance, School of Habitat Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Shuaib Lwasa - is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography Geoinformatics and Climatic sciences at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. Darshini Mahadevia - is the Director of Center for Urban Equity at CEPT University in India. She was also the former Dean of the Faculty of Planning during which the curriculum restructuring of the Masters program was undertaken. Edgar Pieterse - is the founding director of the African Centre for Cities (ACC) at the University of Cape Town and holder of the DST/NRF South African Research Chair in Urban Policy. Carolina S. Sarmiento - is an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the School of Human Ecology and an affiliate with the Department of Urban and Regional Planning.
