Cities Across the Globe Program
Summary
The second annual Cities Across the Globe: People and Places Across Borders symposium will bring together scholars, practitioners, and international partners to examine how cities are shaped by global mobility, economic restructuring, political struggle, and cross-border exchange. Hosted by UIC’s Great Cities Institute, the symposium will explore topics including spatial planning, public space, transnational displacement, local ecologies, youth engagement, safety, neoliberalism, and urban inequality. The program will open with a keynote by Diego Aulestia, Ecuador’s Minister of International Trade, on building local economies through world trade, followed by a panel discussion on the impact of international trade on neighborhoods. Additional sessions will highlight urban experiences from around the world, including discussions on welfare politics, migration and diaspora communities, political resistance, urban design, environmental governance, and corporate social responsibility. Through comparative dialogue and interdisciplinary exchange, the symposium will emphasize research-driven approaches to understanding and addressing shared urban challenges across global cities.