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2023 Yuxiu Resource and Environment·Celebrity Forum of the College of Earth and Environmental Sciences (Lecture 20)—Professor Céline ROZENBLAT
Release time:2023-11-22 08:35:37

At the invitation of Professor Yang Yongchun from College of Earth and Environmental Systems, Lanzhou Univsersity, Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental Systems, Ministry of Education, Professor Céline ROZENBLAT from University of Lausanne gave an exchange and academic report on November 18, 2023.

Reporter:Professor Céline ROZENBLAT, University of Lausanne

Title: Cities Resilience and transitions: from local Digital Twins to global complex urban systems

Time: November 18, 2023 (Saturday) 16:00-18:00

Venue:1408, Guanyun Building, Lanzhou University

Teams ID:410 656 021 269Password:wpnQ5w

Moderator: Professor Yang Yongchun, College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University

Expert Profile:

Céline Rozenblat, is professor of Urban Geography at the University of Lausanne, Director of the Institute of Geography and Sustainability (IGD), and vice-president of International Geographical Union (IGU). She is member of the International Science Council (ISC) commission on Urban Health and Well Being: A system approach for 4 years. She is member of the Society of Complex Systems, and of the Digital Campus of complex Systems. She studies the evolution of power distributions inside and between cities that reshapes the world organization of central/peripheral cities and the complexity of the global urban systems. Actors as multinational firms, or high-level innovation centers, participate actively in these reconfigurations that concentrate wealth, control, innovation, and attractiveness in a few cities introducing increasing inequalities inside and between cities. In the complexity of this multi-level system, how is regionalization of the world reshaping in a multipolar urban world? How does the multi-level perspective highlight some resilience properties and the well-being inequalities in cities? The methodologies derived from complex systems sciences bring new forms of intelligibility to worldwide urban dynamics. For several years she has worked on the evolution of multi-level urban processes and dynamics in city-system networks. To study these topics comparatively, she has built many databases on large European and worldwide cities and the intertwined networks they form. Using evolutionary economic geography and urban system science, she underlines city properties and their evolution in a multi-dimensional and long temporal approach. Diachronic and dynamic models and visualizations aim to offer different perspectives for cities’ policies.

Abstract: In the context of the climate change and energetic and political crises, new tendencies in the long/medium term evolution of urban systems, together with new data and methods, require that existing theoretical assumptions and conceptualizations be challenged as global urban hierarchies are reconfigured and citizens’ aspirations in their urban environments are in strong transformations. The connection between urban systems at different levels of organization becomes more and more relevant for understanding urban systems and their transitions. But the current inter-urban perspective is not sufficient to encompass these dynamics. The evolution of power distributions inside and between cities reshapes the world organization of central/peripheral cities and the complexity of the global urban system. Actors as multinational firms, or high-level innovation centers, participate actively in these reconfigurations that concentrate wealth, control, innovation, and attractiveness in a few cities. At the local level, citizens wish more health and well-being implying better policy coordination between local and national/international scales. In the complexity of this multi-level system, how is regionalization of the world reshaping in a multipolar urban world? How does the multi-level perspective highlight some resilience properties if one integrates environmental care in the urban system? The theories and methodologies derived from complex systems sciences bring new perspectives for urban transitions towards more sustainability and resilience.

College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University

Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental Systems, Ministry of Education,Lanzhou University

November 22, 2023