Presentation of the maps

      June 2010 Zürich/CH    

 About 150 participants attended the conference in Zurich’s Rote Fabrik. More than 80 of them continued discussions in the retreat in Richterswil by the Lake of Zurich. The Keynote Speeches on Monday morning (see conference program www.inura.org) were followed by Guided Tours through the exhibition in the afternoon (see below). Tuesday’s Workshops allowed further insights into many more aspects of contemporary urban development, action movements and theoretical considerations. Contributions from Tokyo, Bangkok, Delhi, Rotterdam and many other regions added more examples to the debate of the „New Metropolitan Mainstream“. The seven Urban Safaris through the Zurich region on Wednesday added local stories, sights, and experiences to the general debate.

 Exhibition: 36 groups contributed maps and posters from their cities: Addis Ababa, Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona, Basel, Beirut, Belgrade, Berlin, Bern, Brussels, Cairo, Florence, Geneva, Glasgow, Granada, Green Bay, Hamburg, Havana, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Kolkata, London, Medellin, Melbourne, Mexico City, Palermo, Paris, Salvador de Bahia, Rhine / Ruhr, Rome, St. Petersburg, Tallinn, Toronto, Vienna, Winnipeg, Zurich. Maps and posters were designed along common guidelines that had been developed over the last two years. For two days, they covered the walls of two of Rote Fabrik’s event halls (and later the walls of the Youth Hostel as well!). To get a better understanding of the maps and posters, we organized 9 parallel tours through the exhibition with each one taking us to a different sample of 8 different cities. Each of these cities was then presented and discussed by a member of the respective local group.

 Collective research: The impression of 36 cities, displayed in a (at least partly) comparable manner, was overwhelming. Maps and posters allow different perspectives, levels and methods of analysis. Despite any number of problems in applying sometimes inadequate categories and despite reservations against standardization and concepts, the search for commonalities, similarities and differences between cities has been started successfully. How this will be continued was later discussed in the retreat (see below). Furthermore, the maps and posters represent the result of an important collective effort of all the 36 local groups, collecting information, discussing urban development and sharing their experiences. The material thus collectively produced forms a unique stock of knowledge and experience and a wonderful base for further elaboration. As preliminary result, a CD-Rom has been produced containing all posters and maps. Additionally, many (not yet all) of the original Google maps are accessible at the NMM inura blog.

 The retreat The main aim of the retreat was to continue the debate on the “New Metropolitan Mainstream“ and to decide on how to continue the common INURA project. The title itself was fiercely disputed and is almost certain to be changed. The three days of intense debates and discussions, sometimes interrupted by swimming in the lake and watching football world cup, brought the project important steps forward. There are still a lot of results and material that has to be collected and further elaborated. We decided that we will continue with the common project, improve the mapping, work on the comparative analysis of the different cities, and organize the dissemination of our results. The internet allows us to share our results with more people and to involve additional groups from other cities. Several working groups have been formed, responsible chairs chosen and deadlines were set for first results (see inura-2010-results-and-next-steps). To proceed in a collective way, we decided to organize, in addition to the INURA conferences held once a year, special INURA workshops to discuss the achieved results and decide on the next steps of the common project.