Past Events

Co-sponsored by the Department of City and Regional Planning and the ARCUS program. While Washington, D.C., is still often referred to as “Chocolate City,” it has undergone significant demographic, political, and economic change in the last decade. In D.C., no place represents this shift better than the H Street corridor. Brandi Thompson Summers documents D.C.’s shift to […]

This event has been cancelled due to the campus closure for large events and classes due to COVID-19. We hope to reschedule for the fall. In this talk I will review a 12 years-long project that transformed an illegal squatter settlement built by indigenous Amis people from east coast Taiwan into a legal and permanent […]

In conventional processes of gentrification, upper class residents start populating traditionally lower-income neighborhoods eventually causing an economic and spatial transformation that starts displacing the original residents. In Caracas, massive construction of social housing in central areas of the city carried out by the Venezuelan Grand Housing Mission (Gran Misión Vivienda Venezuela, GMVV) is producing a […]

This event has been cancelled due to the campus closure for large events and classes.   GMS is pleased to co-sponsor the conference ‘Power at the Margins II: Mobilizing Across Housing Injustice’ (PATM II). The conference, organized by two GMS DE students, Christopher Herring (PhD Candidate, Department of Sociology) and Laura Belik (PhD Student, Department of Architecture), will […]

Francesco Bandarin will speak on the restoration of Notre Dame Cathedral after the April 15, 2019 fire that destroyed the structure’s roof and spire. The lecture will include an assessment of the damage, a presentation of the current restoration activities, and a discussion of the reconstruction policies of the cathedral.  As Assistant Director-General for Culture and Director of the UNESCO […]

The smart city concept as a modern proposal for city management to respond to rapid urban development has gained particular significance and popularity and recently has become a new paradigm of urban development and socio-economic growth. Nevertheless, there is no single common definition of the smart city, and disputes mean that such a definition will […]

A Matrix Lecture by Keeanga-Yamhatta Taylor, author of Race for Profit. Race for Profit uncovers how exploitative real estate practices continued well after housing discrimination was banned. The same racist structures and individuals remained  intact after redlining’s end, and close relationships between regulators and the industry created incentives to ignore improprieties. Meanwhile, new policies meant to […]

  How can “smart cities” serve to connect citizens and government? We utilize an increasingly common  stimulus in urban life — large electronic kiosks with advertisement screens — to test the way that one type of smart city technology can be used to encourage civic behavior. We partner with LinkNYC, which  operates the high definition […]

  GMS is pleased to co-sponsor the 2019 Martin Wachs Lecture. Now in its twelfth year, the annual Wachs Lecture draws innovative thinkers to the University of California to address today’s most pressing issues in transportation. This year, the lecture will be given by Elizabeth Deakin, a Professor of City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley, […]

Please join us for drinks and appetizers at our Fall 2019 open house to learn about the GMS Designated Emphasis (DE, a PhD minor) and meet our two new core faculty members (Desiree Fields and Brandi Summers, both in Geography), as well as other faculty affiliates.  Come to learn about funding opportunities through the GMS DE and GMS research initiatives during […]