Date: Monday, November 16, 2009
Time: 5:30pm – 8:00pm
Location: IMDC auditorium, IIM Ahmedabad
The symposium began with an address by Enrique Peñalosa, the former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia who is in the league of the world’s greatest city leaders.Dr. Prem Pangotra, Chair , CIPR , IIMA delivered the welcome address.
Penalosa was behind the transformation of Bogota which was once infested with crime, drugs and pollution into a city that is now celebrated worldwide as model of urban renewal.
The address was followed by a Panel discussion titled “Crafting India’s Urban Vision” was moderated by Prof. Navdeep Mathur, IIM A & Prathima Manohar , The Urban Vision. It  included Panelists : Dr. Bimal Patel – Leading Architect & Planner , Prof . Rameshwar – Dean of Urban Design School and Chairman of Graduate school , CEPT University , I . P . Gautam , Municipal Commissioner of Ahmedabad and Kiran Bir Sethi, Riverside School.
The Symposium was hosted by the CIPR , IIMA; The Urban Vision and ITDP.

Date: Friday, October 30, 2009
Time: 6:00pm – 8:00pm
Location: Hub, Mumbai
The Urban Vision Lecture Featured leading Urbanist Dhiru Thadani. The lecture and discussion highlighted critical pro-active measures that need to be embraced to drive the long-term economic and societal advancement of the country.

Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Time: 5:45pm – 8:00pm
Location: Columbia Business School, New York, NY
The Urban Vision in partnership with Columbia Business School’s Energy club, Social enterprise club and Green Business club hosted a forum on sustainable transportation in Columbia University, New York City as part of The Urban Vision’s “Climate Month” celebration between September 15 – October 15 2009 leading up to the historic Copenhagen Summit scheduled for December 2009. The “Climate Month” featured a series of Forums and Symposiums with major thought leaders of our times to evaluate solutions to moving our planet into a sustainable path.
This Sustainable Transportation forum highlighted several projects and innovative processes that would benefit us in climate change mitigation while improving the overall quality of life.
Prathima Manohar from The Urban Vision set the tone of the meeting by reminding the audience of some facts like climate change being greatest challenges faced by our planet and cities being at the heart of this problem. About 80% of carbon emissions can be attributed to the cities, and automobiles contribute to the half of carbon emission. Prathima added that while other sectors like industry have been able to reduce carbon emissions; the transport sector has steadily increased their carbon emissions.
Earl Jackson, Associate Director at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) showcased the projects and design ideology of SOM. Earl focused on two main projects: – Tyson’s corner in Fairfax County, Virginia and Maytas forest Hills, Hyderabad. SOM was involved in developing a master plan with a focus on transit for Tyson’s Corner. The plan was to introduce four new metro stations on the site to reduce the automobile dependency and increase pedestrian traffic. The concept of this design was to develop a pedestrian friendly neighbourhood for community living while including the infrastructure associated with these metro rail stations.
The design programme for Maytas Forest hills included a special economic zone and only two site accesses. The integration of this project to the Hyderabad city depended on the local /regional buses, which would enter the site through these main access points. A major road loop where local /regional buses would run was created with the accesses and a smaller internal loop was designed to intersect the major loop where the energy efficient buses serviced the internal site area. The proposal had highest density around the special economic zone to facilitate residences for people to live where they work. The plan also included watersheds to harvest rainwater, preserved existing orchards and used locally available material to reduce the community’s carbon footprint.
Fred Kent the Founder and President for People for Public Places (PPS discussed concepts of place-making which involved using the community to develop public spaces. PPS works on ideas like the comfort, place-making, power of 10, zealousness of public, and acknowledging community is an expert to develop places in cities. Power of 10 concept advocates that each community needs to have 10 places with things to do, 10 destinations to go to and 10 such communities would make a region interesting. Fred discussed the case study of downtown New Hampshire where PPS was successful in creating a people friendly place with their approach of involving the community. Fred introduced some experiments in the presentation which defied the general notion of traffic functioning. These changes in road design by PPS have proved to reduce crashes according to the data collected. Fred also went on to explain the sustainability of traditional markets, shop fronts and suggested using green design as a integrated concept as compared to the specialised type of design.
Dan Collins, IBM, USA showcased how technology can be used in shaping sustainable future of transportation. An average person today experiences increased commute time to work which is a non-productive time for the commuter. To address this concern IBM is working on tools for congestion management which would reduce commute time. Dan explained infrastructure solutions like cordoned pricing or dynamic pricing for High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) Lanes. Solutions to predict traffic jams based on traffic motion are also being implemented which would predict a jam up to 90 minutes before traffic actually stops. This system is being used in Singapore and gives commuters an opportunity to choose the best available route during congestion. The case study of downtown Stockholm traffic involving IBM technology of dynamic pricing mechanism reduced carbon emissions, traffic congestion and increased the use of public transit. The city of Atlanta is also in the process of implementing cordoned pricing on its highway I-85 which is notorious for traffic jams.
Aaron Naparstek, the editor- in –chief of Streetsblog talked about the challenges of sustainable transportation in New York City (NYC). Average New Yorker emits 1/3 of the green house gasses as compared to average American because of the well connected transit systems. Aaron suggested some alternative sustainable transport solutions to reduce the green house gas emissions further. Bike infrastructure for American cities was an idea suggested in presentation which showed very successful examples from Germany and Paris and NYC. Bus rapid transit system was another successful idea which was used in Bogota and later in cities like Sao Paulo, Auckland and Paris. This type of mass transit system was said to be more sustainable than the way buses are managed at present. Some other ideas Aaron covered were parking management by pricing and availability, traffic congestion pricing on urban roads and making streets more liveable. Aaron went on to explain the significance of having liveable streets and gave some examples of efforts taken around the world for the cause like Parisian Summer gridlock on the Pompidou expressway, Williamsburg walks in NYC, Sumer street event in NYC and public space reclamation in Times Square.
The last contributor of the evening was a medical practitioner from NYC, Dr. Joseph Habboushe who was also working on a new tryp of mass transit idea to solve the crisis of transit in sprawled cities. Joe presented a proposal for perpetual express train to address the sprawl city of Los Angeles, which he and his colleagues designed. An interesting feature of this design was allowing the passengers would be able to transfer between trains via while trains are in motion, eliminating the need to transfer at the station. This idea, if implemented will divided the city of L.A into well connected pedestrian friendly neighbourhoods of 10 min radius each having a stop for perpetual express train system.

Date: Sep 30 , 2009
Time: 1:30am – 3:00pm
Location: SCI-Arc , Los Angelis, California
The discussion included a comparison of urban development in Mumbai and Los Angeles, focusing on the re-densification of sprawling cities, the challenges of implementing mass transit in established urban zones, and the effects of megacities on climate change. Panelists included Sam Lubell from Architects News Paper ;Prathima Manohar , Founder , The Urban Vision; Hsinming Fung, AIA, principal of Hodgetts + Fung Design and Architecture, The director of graduate programs at SCI-Arc ; David Bergman , Cultural Studies Faculty ,Sci-arc ;Peter Zellner,Sci-Arc ; and Josh Williams, Planner, City of Culver City .

Date: Saturday, October 3, 2009
Time: 9:30am – 12:00pm
Location: Goldberg Room, UC Berkeley School of Law, California
Experts urged Indian cities to adopt measures to deal with the imminent devastating effects of Climate Change in a symposium titled “ Battling the Sea Level rise : Lesson for developing World Cities “ held in University of California, Berkeley. The symposium was co-hosted by “The Urban Vision” ; Global Architecture firm Gensler; and Berkeley Energy Resource Collaborative. Speakers included Will Travis, Executive Director of Bay Conservation and Development Commission ( BCDC) ; Matthew Heberger , Pacific Institute & Co-author of the report on sea level rise in California; Michel St Pierre, Director of Planning , Gensler ; Prathima Manohar , Founder , The Urban Vision ; and  Maria. Paz Gutierrez, Assistant Professor of Architecture at UC Berkeley
The ongoing California Climate Adaptation Strategy Draft is among the first example of a tactical plan for action by a government agency to adapt to extreme climate events and sea-level rise. The panellists highlighted the California Strategy plan and looked at ways its model can be employed in developing world cities. The symposium specifically addressed ideas and solutions that cities have to embrace to become resilient to the daunting impacts of Climate change.
Will Travis from BCDC which was one of the key agencies that created the California Climate Action Plan outlined the urgent need for adapting our communities to climate change impacts and a future of extreme climate events “Even if the world turned off all its power plants, stopped using all its cars; even if we managed to halt all our carbon emissions-  it’s still going to get warmer for at least 50 more years due to the current level of carbon in our atmosphere which will contribute to changes in our environment including sea level rise. We have to start building climate resilient communities” said Mr. Travis.
Matthew Heberger from the Pacific Institute spoke about the impacts of climate change and said “There is a need to avoid the unimaginable, and manage the unavoidable. We can expect a range of impacts to the natural and human environment including storm surges; increases in coastal flooding; increased coastal erosion; Loss of property, economic and social disruptions; Potential loss of wetland habitat.”
Mr. Travis also said that coastal cities will have to think about building a lot of levies to protect their low-lying zones. Mr. Travis also called on city and national governments to halt development in areas that were vulnerable to sea surges or were below sea level.
Some 360 million urban residents living in coastal zones risk exposure to sea surges as ocean levels rise by approximately 1 meter through the 21st century. Developing world cities which are often characterized by poor informal settlement will be highly vulnerable. Ten of the developing world’s 15 largest cities are in low-lying coastal areas vulnerable to rising sea levels or coastal surges. “Given its vast shoreline, the impact will be especially severe in India. Coastal Cities like Mumbai and Chennai will be at the heart of the crisis. However, given the early stage of India’s Urbanization with only 30% of the country being Urban; there is also an unique opportunity for India to plan for the future and steer clear of developing in vulnerable and hi-risk areas” said Prathima Manohar , Founder , The Urban Vision.
Michel St Pierre, Director of Planning, Gensler spoke about the need to come out with innovative urban models so that the world can look  at urbanization as the way to solve this crisis “ We are reliant on our cities to sustain us and we need to enhance their sustainable growth so that they can mitigate and adapt to climate change” he said. Prof. Maria-Paz Gutierrez, UC Berkeley shared a innovative interdisciplinary research initiative intersecting architecture and bio-engineering called BIOMS that she founded  which was looking at creating new types of human settlements that were inherently resilient. “The research is based on bio-mimicry principles. Nature has always adapted to the volatility of its own self. For instance – Look at how Mangroves combat storm surges. We are studying the principles of nature that can be used in the design of the built environment as a way to deal with the devastation of climate change.” She said.