 | Track 1: Sustainable Urban Growth in a World of Multiple Crises Aligning long-term integrated spatial development strategies with the urgency of rapid urbanization in a world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA World) is essential to promote sustainable and equitable growth across both cities and their surrounding regions. Action to secure sustainable growth through planning of large-scale urban developments and use of appropriate and livable density present a strategic opportunity to rethink value creation, ensuring that major investments are balanced with inclusive, integrated planning to mitigate the impacts of rapid urbanization. At the heart of sustainable city-regions, urban living and housing serve as a foundation for resilience, helping cities absorb growth and migration while ensuring no one is left behind. Community-centered approaches in urban development forge new ways to rethink resilient living and higher quality of life. To thrive, dynamic cities must come to a balanced urban-rural continuum, recognizing the critical interdependencies between urban areas, rural settlements and nature. Smart, inclusive regional planning leverages these connections, fostering mutually beneficial growth that enhances both urban and rural prosperity. |
 | Track 2: Urban Economy and the Digital Age: 24-hour City and AI Digital technologies, including Artificial Intelligence, are transforming urban and regional economies and lifestyles, accelerating the rise of 24-hour cities, always alive with fast paced leisure and work activities. Urban lifestyles are being transformed by remote work, global connectivity, an abundance of applications that change the way people move, take part in local life and interact with one another. At the same time, citizens expect real time interaction with authorities and responsive services. Smarter planning tools are called to contribute to this digital transformation and harness the next wave of AI-driven innovation. The explosion of new, high-quality urban data offers cities and regions an unprecedented opportunity to chart their own path to prosperity, resilience and well-being while enhancing urban and regional decision-making across different scales. New urban economic strategies no longer rely on real estate profits and must prioritize economic diversification, community benefits, and local economic opportunities. The public sector plays a critical role in forging strategic partnerships to maximize these values and create thriving, inclusive economies. Integrating ESG principles, land value capture, tax incentives, and endowment systems can unlock funding resources for equitable urban development and economic prosperity. At the heart of this transformation, public-private-people partnerships-leveraging local knowledge and collective action-are essential for future-oriented cities in an era of global challenges. |
 | Track 3: Adaptation of Dynamic Cities to Extreme Climatic Conditions In regions facing extreme climate conditions, spatial planning has a huge role to play to understand vulnerabilities and enable cities and regions to withstand the growing impact of climate change. This is a massive and still evolving agenda, which starts by climate-proofing infrastructure, integrating sustainable retrofitting, and tailoring urban form to the unique challenges ahead, which can manifest as an overlapping of heatwaves, droughts, storms, and rainfall bursts. As centers of sustainable development and climate action, cities and regions can draw on urban heritage and local know-how while investigating innovative strategies to navigate current and future climate conditions. Translating global climate commitments into local action and sustainability requires practical frameworks that align with community priorities, using nature-based solutions as key allies in establishing a new balance between nature and urban living. A proactive approach to disaster management, spanning prevention, mitigation, response, and recovery, is crucial to ensuring regions, cities and communities are equipped for an increasingly unpredictable climate and an uncertain future. |
 | Track 4: Culture, Identity, and Inclusive Urban Transformation Vibrant and inclusive urban spaces lie at the intersection of culture, identity, and placemaking in cities undergoing rapid change. Urban spaces are more than physical environments. They are a distinguishing factor in cities and a marker of unique lifestyles. As such, they are expected to reflect the cultural identities of communities, support multicultural expression, and help transform a city through a multiplicity of inclusive neighborhoods. Leveraging culture to regenerate and animate urban neighborhoods explores novel ways of designing spaces for social interaction and cultural diversity, reflecting on biophilic approaches to identity in urban spaces, ensuring equitable access, innovative approaches for cultural expression and finding new ways to balance urban tourism with local communities' rhythms. |
 | Track 5: Governing and Managing the Co-created Agile City Governance and urban management in the era of co-creation and Artificial Intelligence demands adaptive, forward-thinking models that empower cities and regions to have a continuous dialogue with citizens and at the same time localize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Innovative and agile governance frameworks, especially in times of crisis, can promote inclusive urban development, ensuring that local communities are actively involved in decision-making and solution-building. Without proactive and transparent governance and effective and adaptable management, cities risk weakened capacity to address critical urban challenges such as infrastructure deficits, informality, inequality, fragmentation, and social disconnection. Collaborative governance rooted in participation and community-driven approaches fosters innovation, collective problem-solving, and more inclusive service delivery, strengthening cities' ability to adapt and thrive. |