ANNUAL CONFERENCE
The International Urban Fellows annual conference, built around a timely topic in urban policy, is a vital, ongoing part of the Fellows' Institute for Policy Studies experience. It is an opportunity for Fellows to re-establish connections, continue their exchange of expertise, and develop fresh insights into urban problems. Prospective fellows also attend. The conferences are structured to provide an understanding of the local situation and challenges in the host city, comparisons to other cities, and ample opportunity to exchange views and develop recommendations for action.
The conference site is chosen by the Fellows alumni based on proposals from prospective hosts, who are former Fellows. In 1997, the conference in Heerlen, the Netherlands, examined economic development in cross-border regions, and the 1998 conference in Lodz, Poland considered east-west comparisons in urban and regional development policy. In 1999, in Cork and Dublin, Ireland, the focus was on the effects of economic growth on cities using a cross-national context.
Every 10 years, the annual conference returns to Baltimore. It is a time when former Fellows can see what progress has been made since their fellowship in the city, and discuss issues of current concern to Baltimore and other cities and regions around the world. For the 75 international urban experts who attended the conference in 2000, Baltimore is a benchmark, a city that has sparked new ideas about urban revitalization. The "Baltimore in Transition" conference was an opportunity for Fellows to apply their expertise to the city's most prominent challenges.
In 2001, the Fellows gathered in Mersin and Istanbul, Turkey to focus on preserving the natural and manmade heritage of the Turkish Mediterranean coast while guiding orderly development in these fast-growing regions. At the behest of the host, the regional planning agency for the Ile-de-France region, the 2002 Paris conference highlighted public safety challenges and the strategies, including urban planning, being used to address them. In the 2003 conference in Split and Durbonvik, Croatia, the conference themes involved economic development strategies, particularly tourism.
Findings of the Fellows are summarized on site for local policymakers and in a written report issued after the conference.
The 38th Annual Conference of the Johns Hopkins International Fellows in Urban Studies will be held in Copenhagen, DENMARK and Malmö, SWEDEN.
The Welfare State Meets the Market: Affordable Housing, Social Exclusion, and Regional Planning
Denmark and Sweden are generally considered to be welfare states with a high level of social security. For decades, the ambition has been to assure citizens equal access to medical treatment, education, and social benefits, including affordable housing.
Like most countries over the past decade, housing prices in Denmark and Sweden have risen to levels that are unaffordable to all but the most affluent, and have only recently moderated. At the same time, immigration, social problems, and the political and economic situation in Scandinavia and elsewhere have created segregation of the population and even poverty among the socially stigmatized. Social differences influence economic opportunities, and thereby the housing market and residential patterns. The result is that the population groups facing the greatest challenges are concentrated in neighborhoods with only modest networks for education, jobs and social relations.
In Denmark and Sweden, housing subsidies, particularly for housing production, have been curtailed because of national budget shortfalls, tax reforms, the rising costs of construction, and fundamental renegotiation of the social compact. These same forces are at work in other democracies old and new.
At the Fellows conference June 7-11, 2008, we will use the experiences of Denmark and Sweden to explore the challenges that all cities face in assuring the basic necessities of life for all their citizens. The conference sessions will provide an opportunity to:
- Learn about how the welfare systems, in general, and the housing systems, in particular, have worked historically; what precipitated the movement away from deep commitments to social welfare of all citizens in favor of market principles; and the structure of the welfare--and housing--systems today in Denmark and Sweden.
- Share the similarities and differences in the Danish, Swedish, other European countries’ and United States’ housing markets and approaches to housing affordability.
- Discuss the impact on housing markets and affordability of regional growth patterns – with special attention to the emergence of the Orestadsregion in the wake of the construction of the bridge between Malmö and Copenhagen.
- Explore the complementary efforts to improve the economic situation of low-income families through education, job training, and related asset-building efforts.
- Make recommendations about what else could be done.
Click here for preliminary program information
Click here for registration form and accommodation information
