International Conference on "Imagining the Future: Community Innovation and Social Resilience in Asia"

What will the future city be like in the Asian context? Globalization has brought profound changes and uncertainties to Asian cities, and has led to the transformation of communities in terms of their physical, social, and cultural space. While some groups are beneficiaries of change, often specific communities are marginalized, due to such factors as ethnicity, gender, age, and family and religious status. In an era of change, cultural diversity and traditional capital, together with eminent vicissitudes are important resources and are critical in stimulating more creative energies. This conference seeks to ask: What are some of the new tensions as society integrates and/or diversifies? How do individual agency and community innovation contribute to a new urban existence? What are the institutional and cultural reservoirs that foster social resilience? Are there alternative modernities? This international conference provides an interdisciplinary forum on which scholars critically examine and imagine the future city together.