“Citisphere”

14th Annual Symposium on Environmental Affairs

October 10-13, 2011

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Statistics on urban growth tell an impressive tale of one of humankind’s greatest migrations. Both domestically and globally scholars anticipate the time when the majority of humankind will live in cities. Satellite imagery shows the urban environment spreading over the landscape year after year and lighting up the planet at night.

The city is becoming one of Earth’s most important environments, with a reach far greater than its physical footprint. And yet cities have commanded limited attention in traditional environmental discourse, with much of the focus on carbon emissions reduction through “green building” and transportation planning. This year’s Environmental Affairs Symposium, Citisphere, seeks to expand this discourse and to explore the diverse characters, mechanisms, and roles of cities in biophysical and social systems at all scales.

Physicists, sociologists, urban planners, architects, ecologists, artists, and historians will speak to the ways cities grow and develop, and to the ways cities and people shape each other. Is there such a thing as too much planning? Do cities ever die? Which features of cities can be generalized? Who and what makes a city flourish? Can cities generate “environmental capital”? The 14th Annual Environmental Affairs Symposium seeks to understand how the complex system of world cities – which we dub the Citisphere – works among other spheres of human and environmental significance.

Fish-eye image courtesy of Pablo Aguilar

About the Symposium

Each year, the Environmental Studies Program at Lewis & Clark offers a symposium on environmental affairs. The multi-day event brings together experts from around the country for a dynamic series of lectures and panels on contemporary issues in environmental affairs. Explore our archive to learn about previous symposia.

All symposium events are free and open to the public.