New Urban Governance: Urban complexity and institutional capacities of cities

‘New Urban Governance: Urban complexity and institutional capacities of cities’ is a new two-year LSE Cities research project co-funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to examine multiple aspects of municipal planning, management, and governance. The project’s focus will be on ‘new urban governance’, a working title that refers to currently emerging governance regimes in cities triggered by a historic conjuncture of the ongoing devolution of decision making powers to cities on the one hand and unprecedented urban challenges on the other. The overall goal of this project is to establish a solid perspective of the need, potential focus and feasibility of urban governance-related research to help elucidate and address the complex and interconnected challenges faced by cities around the world. The project aims to:

• Identify the most relevant urban governance related areas of future research and related knowledge gaps
• Examine the different requirements for new urban governance in a selected group of world regions
• Provide an overview on the most innovative forms of urban governance and related key lessons
• Test research methodologies for generating new knowledge that can potentially inform institutional change in cities
• Build a network of academics and urban practitioners that are engaging with some of the fundamental questions affecting urban governance

‘New Urban Governance: Urban complexity and institutional capacities of cities’ will be split into four components: LSE Cities research on new urban governance, research papers based on regional perspectives, foresight seminars on urban governance futures, a series of half-day foresight seminars through which key questions, scenarios and research opportunities related to urban governance futures are explored, and conference sessions and outreach.

For more information please visit www.lsecities.net