The LUCAS group travels to Shanghai
01 Mar 2017Written by Stephen Parkes.
Members of LUCAS have recently returned from attending the Urban Transitions Global Summit 2016 in Shanghai. With Shanghai one of the cities at the heart of our research efforts, this Global Summit provided a valuable opportunity to spend time in the city and expand our knowledge of the dynamics and systems operating within this vast urban habitat.
The Shanghai city model
Within the conference building we heard from researchers and practitioners from across the globe about current research efforts seeking to help cities to transition towards more sustainable and resilient futures. We presented our own ideas too, with talks from a range of researchers within our group:
-
Andy Allen A rapid urban decarbonisation scenario analysis tool (with Sameh Zakhary, Yong Mao, and Darren Robinson).
-
Yong Mao Thermodynamic entropy as an indicator for urban sustainability? (with Ben Purvis and Darren Robinson).
-
Stephen Parkes Infrastructure finance under austerity: Insights from the Nottingham workplace parking levy (with Pelin Demirel and Sarah Hall).
-
Paul Nathanail The role of pocket-brownfields in healthy cities.
-
Paul Nathanail A systematic understanding of cities for a sustainable future for cities (with Y. Tang).
And poster presentations from:
-
Kunpeng Wang Towards the generalized co-simulation of urban energy systems (with Darren Robinson)
-
Sameh Zakhary A computational workflow for urban micro-simulation of buildings’ energy performance (with Darren Robinson, Andy Allen, and Peer-Olaf Siebers).
Beyond the conference, we immersed ourselves in Shanghai, spending time walking around the city and along the famous Bund. We travelled to the edges of the Shanghai, where the rural-urban boundary is increasingly blurred. Our trip out to the edge of the city using the Metro system gave us a snapshot of just how vast Shanghai is and some of the difficulties it faces in accommodating its substantial population, and how it is seeking to overcome this.
 |
 |
Views from the Metro
 |
 |
Darren and Kunpeng of LUCAS
In all, the trip was a great success. We met and spoke to many interesting people, both within the conference and beyond. Shanghai is a fascinating city. As with all global cities, it faces many challenges now and into the future: housing its growing population, ensuring a liveable environment for its residents, and creating jobs and opportunities.
 |
 |
Andy Allen of LUCAS
Through our research efforts, LUCAS can contribute towards tackling these problems. To find out more about our work, please visit our website, or take a look through the presentations above.