Soft Infrastructures for Sustainable Urban Societies
A two-day workshop exploring how institutions, social networks, governance and knowledge can support just and sustainable urban transitions.
About the workshop
How can cities build more sustainable societies without relying on technological solutions alone?
Soft Infrastructures for Sustainable Urban Societies brings together researchers to examine the institutions, relationships, social norms, governance arrangements and knowledge practices that shape urban change. The workshop centres on three interconnected challenges: housing justice, climate action, and the digital infrastructure transition.
Rather than treating these as separate policy fields, the workshop will consider how they interact as urbanisation reorganises land, energy, data and everyday life. It asks who benefits from these transformations, who bears their risks, and what enables people and communities to thrive through processes of change.
The workshop is organised by the Department of Geography and Environment at LSE in collaboration with partner institutions of the Global Alliance on Sustainable Urban Societies and supported by the Global School of Sustainability.
What will the workshop explore?
Discussions will focus particularly on:
- Housing justice: how housing security, climate risks, energy costs and green or smart investment intersect, including the potential for displacement pressures.
- Climate action: how climate resilience is shaped by governance, infrastructure investment, land markets and uneven environmental burdens.
- Digital and energy infrastructures: the material demands of digital systems, including energy and space, and the governance dependencies they create.
- Soft infrastructures: how institutions, rules, community networks, social norms, public participation and local knowledge can shape more equitable transitions.
Programme
The programme will be made available soon.
About the Global Alliance on Sustainable Urban Societies
The Global Alliance on Sustainable Urban Societies brings together five urban research institutions in an interdisciplinary, people-centred approach to sustainable urban change. Its founding institutions are the Department of Geography and Environment at LSE; Initiative on Cities at Boston University; Melbourne Centre for Cities at the University of Melbourne; School of Cities at the University of Toronto; and Urban Institute at Singapore Management University.
The Alliance emphasises the importance of the “soft infrastructures” of urban life, including social and cultural norms, networks, governance and economic linkages, alongside physical and technological infrastructures.
Who is it for?
The workshop brings together the five Global Alliance convenors and invited contributors, including early-career researchers. The Day 1 public roundtable will be open to the public.
Organisers
LSE Department of Geography and Environment, in collaboration with the Global Alliance on Sustainable Urban Societies and with the support from the Global School of Sustainability. For enquiries, please contact Professor Hyun Bang Shin at h.b.shin@lse.ac.uk.
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