Robert Cowherd's guest appearances

Robert Cowherd

Special Events at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy

Saskia Sassen

Jeff Hou

Rick Caruso

Carl Spetzler

Aseem Inam

George Bekey

Vinayak Bharne

Harry Pachon

OwlTail

Engaging the Asian City: Alternative Approaches to Urban Theory, Pedagogy, and PracticeA Half-Day Symposium at the USC Sol Price School of Public PolicyEngaging the Asian City: Robert Cowherd - Associate Professor of Architecture, Wentworth Institute of TechnoloBringing together contributors of the recent 24-chapter volume The Emerging Asian City: Concomitant Urbanities &amp; Urbanisms (Routledge 2012), and building upon Price School graduate student work from the India and Japan studios, this half-day symposium will spark a dialogue on how Asian cities are being shaped by different social, political and cultural phenomena compared to European and American ones, and why we should choose to read and ultimately engage with them differently.Many Asian cities are going through the same problems as Western ones: the debacles of single use zoning, FAR regulations, bureaucratic planning, urban disinvestment, sprawl, autopian dominance, etc. However, different governance structures, ambiguous administration and reinforcement, rapid population explosions, massive rural to urban migrations, extreme economic polarizations, large informal economies, the dominance of religion, the ambitions of a rising middle-class, the continuing perceived superiority of the West, all raise perplexing questions on how to intervene with what are essentially very different expectations of urban life in the first place. How Asian cities are manifesting the choices and decisions about their past and present, who in fact is making these choices, in turn for whom, and how they are being implemented, are crucial pointers to how we need to initiate alternative approaches to their deep histories, complex presents and ambitious futures.This discussion will seek to push the definitions of urban theory, pedagogy and practice beyond conventional and ordained readings - not as confident proposals for what a city ought to be, but careful engagements with existing and inherent mechanisms towards strategic change.

Engaging the Asian City: Alternative Approaches to Urban Theory, Pedagogy, and Practice A Half-Day Symposium at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy Engaging the Asian City: Robert Cowherd - Associate Professor of Architecture, Wentworth Institute of Technolo Bringing together contributors of the recent 24-chapter volume The Emerging Asian City: Concomitant Urbanities &amp; Urbanisms (Routledge 2012), and building upon Price School graduate student work from the India and Japan studios, this half-day symposium will spark a dialogue on how Asian cities are being shaped by different social, political and cultural phenomena compared to European and American ones, and why we should choose to read and ultimately engage with them differently. Many Asian cities are going through the same problems as Western ones: the debacles of single use zoning, FAR regulations, bureaucratic planning, urban disinvestment, sprawl, autopian dominance, etc. However, different governance structures, ambiguous administration and reinforcement, rapid population explosions, massive rural to urban migrations, extreme economic polarizations, large informal economies, the dominance of religion, the ambitions of a rising middle-class, the continuing perceived superiority of the West, all raise perplexing questions on how to intervene with what are essentially very different expectations of urban life in the first place. How Asian cities are manifesting the choices and decisions about their past and present, who in fact is making these choices, in turn for whom, and how they are being implemented, are crucial pointers to how we need to initiate alternative approaches to their deep histories, complex presents and ambitious futures. This discussion will seek to push the definitions of urban theory, pedagogy and practice beyond conventional and ordained readings - not as confident proposals for what a city ought to be, but careful engagements with existing and inherent mechanisms towards strategic change.

Engaging the Asian City: Robert Cowherd