Founded in 1989, MRI turns 30 this year – and celebrates the occasion with a call for papers and participation on its anniversary conference in September 2019.
The conference “Urban and Housing Systems under Pressure: Varieties of Responses” will be organised on 27-29 September 2019. The venue – Council of Europe’s European Youth Centre Budapest – will be familiar to many project partners and former conference participants.
The key thematic foci of the event will be urban, housing, and welfare responses to the global crisis, and the subsequent mixed recovery. The conference will have two main tracks. The first explores the urban context: how are cities affected by changing conditions, and how do they respond? The second track focuses on housing and welfare: how do new challenges transform European housing and welfare regimes? MRI’s aim is to explore, debate and crystallise promising attempts to build more sustainable and equitable development pathways in European cities.
In the course of the conference one of the half-day tracts will focus on post-socialist urban and housing systems. Thirty years have passed since the Central and Eastern European region embarked on its transition to democracy and market economy. According to many, this transition is over by now. If so, where are these countries and cities today? What comes after post-socialism?
Contrary to most paper-an-presentation based conferences, MRI hopes to incite an interactive event based on short keynotes, panel discussions, and lively debates. Conference events will be complemented with social events. A field trip will allow participants to witness interesting examples of post-socialist transformation, and hotspots of emerging conflicts of post-transition development. And last bur not least: the conference will also provide opportunity to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Metropolitan Research Institute.