Una nota breve para haceros llegar la información de que la London School of Economics, con un importante apoyo financiero del Deutsche Bank, ha creado el LSE Cities, centro de estudios urbanos del Departamento de Sociología, dirigido por Ricky Burdett. Esta inicitiva es una derivada de su excelente proyecto, Urban Age, del que he hablado alguna vez y del que, a su vez, surgió un extraordinario libro, The endless city, del que tengo pendiente escribir algún día.
En su nota de prensa afirman:
Deutsche Bank Chairman Josef Ackermann and LSE Director Howard Davies announced the creation of LSE Cities, an international centre for urban excellence, with an endowment of £1 million from Deutsche Bank each year over a period of five years. Architect Richard Rogers joined to celebrate this new initiative aimed at improving the lives of people in cities across the world.
LSE Cities will carry out research, outreach and teaching activities in the urban field. Its principal aim is to contribute to knowledge production, dissemination and application critical for the development of cities worldwide, focussing on the interrelationship of physical, social, environmental and economic characteristics of cities.
The new centre will continue to hold an annual Urban Age conference in different cities on emerging themes that affect the social, economic and environmental life of cities. Through executive teaching programmes, summer schools, short courses, research projects and advisory consultancies LSE Cities will assist urban decision makers to investigate and apply socially and environmentally sensitive innovations at both the macro and the micro level. Its research and teaching activities will be designed to expand and improve conceptual frameworks, apply new methodologies, encourage debate about issues raised by developments in research and practice and introduce new themes that will contribute to urban policy development.
LSE Cities, to be located in the Department of Sociology, will start on 1 January 2010 and will be directed by Ricky Burdett, LSE Professor in Architecture and Urbanism.