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GCRO conferences, seminars and symposia

GCRO will partner with other academic departments and centres to run various kinds of academic dialogue. Note that these are in addition to workshops, symposia and public launch-events held in the normal course of GCRO projects.

Selected conferences, seminars and symposia:

2011
  • In partnership with the African Centre for Cities, GCRO arranged for Ricky Burdett, Professor of Urban Studies and Director of the LSE: Cities Programme, to present on his new book – Living in the Endless City – to a workshop of the Advisory Council of the Gauteng Planning Commission, and to the Faces of the City Seminar Series.
  • GCRO continued to co-organise the Faces of the City: Urban Form, Fabric and Function seminar series with the NRF Chair of Spatial Planning and Modelling Phil Harrison, and the Centre for Urban and Built Environment Studies (CUBES), at Wits. In all, 24 seminars were arranged as part of this series in 2011. They included: 
    • Ian Palmer, ‘Linking spatial planning to financial arrangements: an approach to costing of cities”, 8 March 2011
    • Peter Ahmad, ‘Growth and development trends in the City of Johannesburg’, 15 March
    • Anton Harber, ‘Diepsloot’, 5 April 2011
    • Jak Koseff, ‘"Towards Zero Deprivation” – the role of spatial poverty targeting in creating a more inclusive Johannesburg’, 12 April 2011
    • Catherine  Cross, ‘Youth migration and access to employment in the city’, 10 May 2011
    • Megan Jones, ‘Mobile masculinities: gangsters, cars and the spectacular in three post-apartheid texts’, 17 May 2011
    • Li Pernegger, Luke Sinwell, Adrian Masson, ‘The effects and  outcomes of state interventions in townships’, 24 May 2011
    • Georges Pfruender, ‘Playing the city: urban games’, 7 June 2011
    • Yan Yang and Khangelani Moyo, ‘Chinese Spaces’ 14 June 2011
    • Aly Karam, Sarah Charlton and Marie Huchzermeyer, ‘Poor peoples’ housing and the shaping of Johannesburg’, 21 June 2011
    • Philip Harrison and Elsona van Huyssteen, ‘Sharing an emerging narrative on South Africa’s space economy: a perspective from the National Planning Commission’, 28 June 2011
    • Martin Murray &  Claire Herbert, ‘Building new cities from scratch: the future of urban Africa’, 5 July 2011
    • Paul Jenkins, ‘African architecture(s), historiography & transculturation: putting Pancho in place', 26 July 2011
    • Karl von Holdt, ’The post-apartheid bureaucracy: inner dynamics of state weakness’, 2 August 2011
    • Christina Cielo, ‘Collective political subjects in the urban peripheries: What can the Bolivian case tell us?’, 16 August 2011
    • Alan Mabin, ‘Is this our future (2)?  Further learning from São Paulo’, 30 August 2011
    • Ricky Burdett, ‘The endless city’, 20 September 2011
    • Bill Freund, ‘City and nation in an African context: national identity in Kinshasa’, 27 September 2011
    • Jean-Pierre Schaefer and Marie Defay, ‘Financing social housing: investing in urban regeneration’, 11 October 2011
    • Marie Huchzermeyer, ‘Book launch: “Cities with slums” and “Tenement Cities”’, 1 November 2011. 
2010
  • GCRO co-organised a seminar series with NRF Chair of Spatial Planning and Modelling Phil Harrison and the Centre for Urban and Built Environment Studies (CUBES), entitled Faces of the City: Urban Form, Fabric and Function. The series ran from July-November 2010 with GCRO staff chairing some sessions, acting as discussants and presenting seminars within the series. The presentations included:
    • Lamia Kamal-Chaoui, Michael Donovan, Mary Crass, Keith Thorpe, Domingos Pires de Oliveira Dias Neto, Edgar Pieterse, 'Regional territorial policies and strategies for equity, sustainability and economic efficiency: OECD reflections', 20 July 2010
    • Sarah Charlton, 'Loving and leaving: intersections with RDP housing across time and space', 10 August 2010
    • Ivor Chipkin, 'Gated Communities in Gauteng', 24 August 2010
    • Christa Kuljian, 'Making the Invisible Visible: a Story of the Central Methodist Church', 28 September 2010
    • Graeme Gotz, Margot Rubin and Tanya Zack, 'Bad Buildings in Inner City Johannesburg', 5 October 2010
    • Stephen Berrisford, 'Why it’s difficult to change urban planning laws in African countries', 11 October 2010
    • Feizel Mamdoo, 'Fietas Festival', 19 October 2010
    • Thorsten Deckler + Anne Graupner (26’10 South Architects), 'Urban Framework and context', 19 October 2010
    • Safiya Mangera, 'Re-membering Fietas', 19 October 2010
    • Sally Gaule, 'The Joburg Gini', 26 October 2010 
    • Philip Harrison, 'Representations of Johannesburg', 4 November 2010
    • Micaela Smith, 'Restoration of a Colonial Landscape: Negotiating Strategies for a Salvador Da Bahia, Brazil Tourist Economy', 11 November 2010
  • GCRO assisted ACC and SACN with the organisation of a workshop on ‘Urbanisation Trends & Development Planning Dynamics’, held on 14 May 2010, which included a presentation by Aromar Revi of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements
  • GCRO assisted Alan Mabin with a second ‘Think Metropole’ workshop on 4 March 2010 that focused on the theme: how large city-region thinking and action have been changing in diverse ways, with the visiting Canada Research Chair professor in city politics, INRS University, Montreal, Canada, Prof. Julie-Anne Boudreau
  • In response to the global economic crisis the Gauteng Provincial Department of Economic Development commissioned both an industrial strategy and a strategy for a sustainable ‘green’ economy for Gauteng. GCRO co-ordinated the development of the green economy strategy, working with various specialists. On 1 March 2010, GCRO convened a seminar at the University of Johannesburg which saw Prof Mark Swilling, lead author of the green economy strategy, and Dr Susan Newman, lead on the industrial strategy, present their work to an audience of 50 participants. MEC for Economic Development, Firoz Cachalia, acted as discussant, explaining the scope and scale of the challenge facing his department. The event was chaired by David Everatt
2009
  • GCRO worked with Alan Mabin to host a small discussion between interested academics and visiting senior World Bank Institute economist, Shahid Yusuf, on 11 November 2009
  • GCRO assisted Alan Mabin to define, advertise and convene a seminar, ‘Think Metropole’, on 22 October 2009, as part of the Wits School of Architecture & Planning’s Beyond Modernism festival. The seminar considered the recent Grand Paris project of visualising alternative futures for the Paris region, as well as hearing inputs on the GCR