25th International Conference on Urban Planning and Regional Development in the Information Society GeoMultimedia 2020

Currently different trends can be seen in urban development around the globe, but there are some common things:

• historic administrative boundaries do not represent real urban structures any more, cities expand beyond these boundaries and form metropolitan regions, which may even result in transnational functional urban areas and agglomerations;
• in almost all cases it is of utmost importance to coordinate urban development between several governments, administrative authorities and institutions on different levels, but this task turns out to be a quite difficult one;
• cities and regions are hungry for resources and see themselves opposed to density and environmental problems as well as other threats, nevertheless sustainability, resilience, high quality of life and considerate exploitation of natural resources are central goals of urban development;
• new technologies and digitisation play an essential role in the development of cities, urban regions and metropolises – without appropriate urban, environmental and mobility technologies it would hardly be possible to see urban development, maintenance of functionality and creation of livable urban areas.

REAL CORP 2020 aims to discuss strategies and concepts for quality change management in the light of the challenges outlined above, which arise in neighbourhoods, cities, urban regions and metropolitan areas in Europe and around the globe. Questions of who the actual actors of current urban, regional and metropolitan regional development are and what role planners can play in the corresponding scenarios will also be explored.

More detailed info on the conference topics can be obtained from the REAL CORP 2020 website.