About the Symposium

Global Pressures on Local Autonomy:
Challenges to Urban Planning for Sustainability and Development

What Does Planning for “Sustainability” mean? How do you define, measure and promote ‘Effectiveness’ in pursuit of sustainability? What are institutional frameworks and structures that promote sustainable urban practices? What about resource consumption, environmental quality and sustainable development practice and ‘Best Practice’ examples or lessons for planning sustainable urban areas? How is Louisville, Kentucky, USA a case study for this?

This Sixth Biennial Conference and 10th Anniversary Celebration of the The International Urban Planning and Environment Association in Louisville, Kentucky will seek to address these questions, attracting a diverse field of academics and practitioners in order to discuss the very latest advances in practice and research and advance the implementation of sustainable urban forms through sharing knowledge and good practice.

The last symposium of the International Urban Planning and the Environment Association (IUPEA) was held in Oxford, England in 2002. Previous events have been held in Seattle (USA) 1994, Groningen (The Netherlands) 1997, Pretoria (South Africa) 2000, and Haifa (Israel) 2001.

Venue

The Symposium will be in Louisville, Kentucky, USA at the Seelbach Hilton Hotel, a luxurious premier hotel that first opened in 1905 and has been fully restored.  The hotel is a testament to Louisville's "golden era" and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  Conference Delegates will joining the many famous figures (among them eight Unites States presidents, the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald and the gangster Al Capone) who have enjoyed the accomodations and services of the Seelbach.

In January 2003, through the merger of the City of Louisville and its surrounding county, the new Louisville Metro formed.  Overnight, Louisville became the 16th largest city in the United States.  In addition to a vibrant music and theatre setting, Louisville also offers some of the best museums between the coasts in the US, unique architectural monuments, fine dining and recreational access to the Ohio River, all within walking distance of the conference hotel.

Organizers

The conference is the sixth gathering of the International Urban Planning and the Environment Association (IUPEA), an organization formed to foster dialogue and exchange knowledge on solving urban and environmental conflicts.  IUPEA's decade-long series of international symposia have brought together public offifal, respresentatives of non-governmental organizations, researchers, planning professionals and environmental mangers to hear and respond to presentations on current research and experiences of improving environmental conditions in communities throughout the world.  From these symposia, the IUPEA has produced a series of books and the Global IUPEA has recently fostered a European branch, UPE-Europe.

The Center for Environmental Policy and Management (CEPM) at the  The University of Louisville  has undertaken local arrangements and conference program planning. CEPM exists to improve the economic efficiency and environmental efficacy of government and business environmental managment practice at large, and planning practices in particular. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the University of Louisville School of Urban and Public Affairs (of which CEPM is a part) are partial underwriters for CEPM's support of the conference.

Maps

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