Keynote: Releasing the Untapped Potential
Presentation by Anna König mayor of Stockholm
Cities have many untapped potentials. On the one hand, they are vibrant places, facilitating the ‘urban buzz’ with new ideas and innovations floating around freely. They are great places for youngsters, newcomers and those with specific skills or specific needs. However, they are also places with the highest levels of poverty and unemployment. With people who do not seem to be able to benefit from overall progress and mainly experience a lack of affordable housing. How can we make the Reinvented City an inclusive place, that can benefit from and is beneficial to all her residents? The untapped potential also refers to the prospective role that cities can play in (intern)national transitions: how can we make cities beneficial for our nations and the world as a whole? Many cities are frontrunners in finding new ways to become for example more carbon neutral and circular. To do so, they often need to overcome national and international barriers i.e. in terms of rules and legislations. What can we learn from these frontrunners, such as Stockholm, and how can they be breeding grounds for new social and technological innovations that can be upscaled in city-regions and far beyond.
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Header image: EVENT_2021_Scientific_Conference_Marineterrein_.original.png
Icon image: Keynote Reinvented City.png
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