This was a Festival of Ideas Online event and took place on our Crowdcast channel. It is still available to watch for free HERE. Or scroll down to listen to the Soundcloud recording.

There’s been talk that the pandemic will mean the end of cities. Cities are resilient, but they face many challenges due to COVID-19. It’s widely accepted that there can be no return to the pre-pandemic society of 2019; that in building back better we need to have recovery strategies that promote social, economic and environmental justice – indeed, solving the problems that existed before the pandemic to create better cities and places for all.

What can cities do? Where is the new thinking? Robin Hambleton’s new book – Cities and Communities Beyond COVID-19: How Local Leadership Can Change Our Future for the Better (Bristol University Press) – draws on a decade of research to show how cities and communities can lead the way in developing a more inclusive post COVID-19 future for us all. He discusses cities after the pandemic with Sheila Foster (Professor of Urban Law and Policy at Georgetown University) and Marvin Rees (Mayor of Bristol). Chaired by Andrew Kelly, director of Festival of Ideas.

Cities and Communities Beyond COVID-19: How Local Leadership Can Change Our Future for the Better is published by Bristol University Press. Pre-order a copy from our bookseller partner Waterstones.

This is part of #BristolResilience week. From 8 to 16 October the city will host a series of events on the theme of resilience and recovery from COVID-19. Topics to be covered include: the role of property and construction in recovery; how businesses can prepare for winter and Brexit; the role for communities; and resilience to climate change in the next five years. It will culminate in the launch of the first version of the economic recovery plan for the city. Events will be brought together in partnership with Festival of Ideas, Bristol Housing Festival, Bristol One City and Business West.

In association with/

Speakers

Sheila R Foster is the Scott K Ginsburg Professor of Urban Law and Policy at Georgetown University. She holds a joint appointment with the Georgetown Law School and the McCourt School of Public Policy. Her work focuses on the intersection of law, policy and governance with a specific focus on urban communities and cities. She also co-directs LabGov, an international applied research project that works directly with local governments to craft, implement and evaluate new policies that enable city residents to steward land and other resources within their communities. She has been involved on many levels with urban law and policy. She is the chair of the advisory committee for the Global Parliament of Mayors, a leading collaborator with the Georgetown Global Cities Initiative, a member of the New York City Mayor’s Panel on Climate Change, and a former member of the Aspen Institute’s Urban Innovation Group.

Robin Hambleton is Emeritus Professor of City Leadership in the Faculty of Environment and Technology at the University of the West of England, Bristol and Director of Urban Answers. An expert on urban innovation, city management and local governance, he was the founding President of the European Urban Research Association (EURA) and Dean of the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs (CUPPA) at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Mayor Marvin Rees started his career working for faith-based youth charities. He was later a broadcast journalist at the BBC until 2009 and continues to appear on BBC Radio 5 Live as well as local radio stations like Ujima and Bristol Community FM. He started working for the NHS in 2008 where he managed the Delivering Race Equality in Mental Healthcare action plan for Bristol, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset. He then progressed to planning and supporting the development of strategic collaborations between city and regional partners and Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership Trust. In the US he took part in the Yale World Fellows Program and completed a Master’s degree in global economic development at Eastern University. He also worked on the initial effort to organise the response of faith-based organisations to Bill Clinton’s Welfare Reform Bill and sat on the National Executive of the Jubilee 2000 USA campaign for debt relief for the world’s poorest countries. He joined the Labour Party’s Future Candidates Programme in 2011. In 2012 he set up the City Leadership Programme, which invests in personal development, leadership skills and life-planning for talented but disadvantaged young people. He was elected Mayor of Bristol in 2016.