Peter Bishop
The Open City – The open city celebrates its public spaces – its parks, squares, and streets. This is where the health of the city is judged. It needs to be protected, managed, and cared for. It is an essential ingredient of the richness and messiness of the twenty-first-century city.
Peter Bishop is a Professor of Urban Design at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, and a partner of Bishop & Williams consultants. For 25 years he was a planning director at four different central London boroughs, and has worked on major projects at large and complex sites in the UK, including Canary Wharf, the BBC, and King’s Cross.
In 2006 he was appointed as the first Director of Design for London, the Mayor’s architecture and design studio, and in 2008 served as Deputy Chief Executive at the London Development Agency. In 2011 he carried out a policy review on behalf of the government, “the Bishop Review”, on ways in which the quality of design in the built environment might be improved. From 2011 to 2018, he was director at the architecture firm Allies and Morrison. Recent projects include master planning frameworks for Old Oak Common (High Speed 2 interchange), the Palace of Westminster, and Ansan City Centre (Korea). In 2018 he was commissioned by the Government Architect of New South Wales to carry out a comprehensive review of its policies and programmes.
Peter lectures and teaches extensively, and has been a design advisor to the mayors of London, Bucharest, Ansan, and Zhuhai. He was on the jury for the Sochi Winter Olympics Legacy, Jabal Omar development in Mecca, and central Dallas regeneration project. He is an honorary fellow of University College London and honorary fellow of the RIBA, holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Kingston, and in 2017 was Distinguished Visiting Scholar at UTS Sydney. He is currently leading a significant research project on the ways to foster strong communities in housing regeneration.
His book The Temporary City (Routledge, 2012) explores the origins of current thinking on temporary urbanism. He also examined the political processes behind major developments in Planning, Politics and City Making – A Case Study of King’s Cross (RIBA Publishing, 2016).
Carlo Laurenzi
The Natural City – Imagine for a moment that cities were havens for wildlife, the interaction with humans was entirely positive, and the dynamics between the two were mutually beneficial. It is not a big step to make, but a brave one.
Carlo Laurenzi has 34 years’ experience of the UK voluntary sector, twice as a CEO. He now works as a consultant, mostly in the not-for-profit sector, and for the past several years has been an adviser to DEFRA on civil society matters. One of the founding trustees of Rewilding Britain and former CEO of the Wildlife Trust in London, he helped win the contract to create Europe’s largest urban wetland scheme in 2015. He also volunteers in a small park near his home in north London.
Carlo has had short spells in government, as a Whitehall secondee and working for a local authority in London. He has sat on over 30 boards, quangos, and steering groups. A tutor and examiner for the Open University, he has co-authored one of the course books, The Manufacture of Disadvantage (Open University, 1990). He has edited two further short books on mental health. In 2000 he was awarded an OBE, and in the same year was runner-up in the Charity Times Awards for Director of the Year. He founded Hostage UK (now Hostage International) with Terry Waite in 2002. Currently he is its vice-president. He was awarded a Churchill scholarship for a six-nation study in northern Europe in 1989. He has enjoyed a lifetime of walking and cycling around this beautiful planet.
Mauricio Rodas
The Climate Resilient City – Cities are key to addressing the world’s biggest challenges, but they lack proper access to finance. Reforms to the international financial system are needed, and the COVID-19 stimulus may yield that opportunity.
Mauricio Rodas is a Juris Doctor from Universidad Católica (Quito) and holds two Master’s degrees in Government Administration and Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn). He lived in Mexico, where he worked for the UN’s ECLAC and as a policy consultant for the Mexican government. Later he founded and served as Executive Director of Ethos Public Policy Lab. In 2011, Mauricio returned to Ecuador and founded the SUMA political party. In 2013, he ran for President of Ecuador; the following year he was elected Mayor of Quito (2014–2019). During his term, he was the hosting mayor of the UN’s Habitat III Conference. He played a leadership role in city networks: two terms as world Co-President of UCLG, and as a member of the boards of C40, ICLEI, and the Global Covenant of Mayors. He was a Young Global Leader and member of the Global Future Council on Cities of the World Economic Forum. In 2019, he was named one of the 100 World’s Most Influential People on Climate Action by Apolitical; he also received UPenn’s World Urban Leadership Award.
He is a Visiting Scholar at UPenn, working on the Cities Climate-Resilient Infrastructure Financing Initiative. He is also a Distinguished Fellow on Global Cities at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and a Senior Fellow of the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center at the Atlantic Council.
Sophie Hæstorp Andersen
The Green City – The chapter describes Copenhagen’s journey to a green and sustainable city with cleaner air, less noise, smart buildings, and green transport. Working with stakeholders from idea to implementation ensures a fair and feasible transition.
Sophie Hæstorp Andersen has been the Lord Mayor of the City of Copenhagen since January 2022. She has the overall responsibility of the city’s plan to half CO2 emissions from citizens’ consumption towards 2035, half CO2 emissions from the municipality’s own procurement in 2030 and be the first carbon neutral capital after 2025 and climate positive with phasing out biomass before 2035. She is currently working on identifying the next steps of action to ensure the city reaches its goals.
By virtue of her role as Lord Mayor, Sophie Hæstorp Andersen is the chairwoman of Greater Copenhagen in 2022. Greater Copenhagen is a collaborative organisation promoting sustainable growth and development in the largest Nordic metropolitan area with 4,4 million citizens across 85 municipalities and 4 regions in Southern Sweden and Eastern Denmark. During her chairwomanship she aims to drive forward green growth, development, and collaboration across the entire region.
Before her time as Lord Mayor, she was chairwoman of the Region Council in the Capital Region in Denmark from 2014–2021 and member of the Parliament for the Danish Social Democratic Party from 2001–2005 and 2007–2014. Sophie Hæstorp Andersen holds a master’s degree in Political Science from University of Copenhagen.
Mark Watts and Sarah Lewis
The Powerful City – The chapter takes a look at how entrepreneurial big-city mayors drive progress on climate change through bold and innovative action. Cities are where the future happens first.
Mark Watts is Executive