Symposium on the New Urban Social Inequality in the Age of the Knowledge Society
11 July 2013
The new social inequality in modern cities is the subject of an interdisciplinary symposium to be held on 19 and 20 July 2013 at Heidelberg University. The event is being co-hosted by the Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA), the Institute of Geography and the Max-Weber-Institute for Sociology. The public is cordially invited to attend the opening presentation on 18 July by American Geographer Prof. Dr. David Wilson. Wilson works at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign (USA) and studies ethnicity-based inequalities in the cities of the “Rust Belt”, the oldest and formerly largest industrial region in the USA.
The two-day symposium will focus in particular on the issue of inequalities in so-called “creative” cities. The event is part of an international pilot study on comparative research of urban inequality in the knowledge society. “We want to explore the relationship between the sometimes very optimistic promise of the cultural and creative economy with respect to urban prosperity and the development of new social inequalities in those very same cities,” explains Prof. Dr. Ulrike Gerhard of the Institute of Geography. She is coordinating the project together with Dr. Michael Hölscher of the Max Weber Institute for Sociology. In addition to Heidelberg University, the other participating universities include Oxford (Great Britain), British Columbia (Canada), Illinois (USA), Groningen (the Netherlands) and Budapest (Hungary).
During the closed symposium, entitled “Urban Inequality in the Creative City”, representatives of the six network partners will present their research findings and study objectives. Topics will include “Sex and Inequality”, “The Role of the Civil Society in the Creative City”, and “The Promise of the Cultural and Creative Economy and Its Implications”.
Prof. Wilson’s presentation, “Deepening the Creative City: America’s New Development Machine”, on 18 July is open to the public. It begins at 6:15pm at the Heidelberg Center for American Studies, Hauptstraße 120.
