Public Health & Wellbeing

–

Livable Cities   2026  | Manchester, UK

Critiquing the Urban Renaissance.

Dates: 17-19 June, 2026   |   Abstracts: 30 June, 2025

Public Health & Wellbeing

 

Livable Cities 2026 is an international and interdisciplinary conference and publication series. Bringing together universities and scholars globally, it examines diverse readings of the history, culture, design, management and experience of life in cities. Previous conferences in have been held in New York, London, Bangalore, Lisbon, Barcelona, Calgary and elsewhere. The 2026 annual conference is organised with the University of Salford, Manchester, UK. It is subtitled ‘Critiquing the Urban Renaissance’.

Examining issues related to the public health & wellbeing this highlight notice welcomes submissions on a variety of themes including, but not limited to:

COVID-19 AND THE CITY; DESIGN FOR LIFE; SICK BUILDING SYNDROME; CARE IN THE COMMUNITY; HEALTHY CITIES; SANITATION AND PUBLIC HEALTH; WALKABLE CITIES; ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY; ACCESSIBLE DESIGN and more.–

Call Summary

Some 25 years ago Richard Rogers proposed an urban renaissance for cities across the UK. It was a moment of optimism for an urbanised world that, some ten years ago, the United Nations identified had become the most common mode of living for peoples around the globe. The intervening years have brought many criticisms, with cities being seen as places of inequality, social injustice, unsustainability and sites of global health problems. They can, of course, also be places of economic opportunity, cultural creativity, intelligent design and cutting edge architecture and planning. They are, almost by definition, places of contradiction, contrast and contestation.

This conference is interested in diverse readings of the places we inhabit: their design, management, planning, social policies and cultural trends. It is interested in critiques of urban regeneration and creative economies. It seeks debate on tourism and its impacts. It welcomes examinations of the urban economies and smart cities of the digital age. It is concerned with design agendas in the Pacific Rim, and the effects of climate change in both the Global South and North.

Engaging with these questions from Manchester, the birthplace of the industrial revolution and a quintessential example of the UK’s urban renaissance, the conference location is a perfect example of the varied issues at play.

With all this in mind, the 16th Annual Livable Cities Conference explores the design, management and experience of life in cities from across the full range of social science disciplines including:

Public Health, Accessibility Studies, Public Policy, Geography, Sociology, Anthropology, Design and more.

Themes

Interdisciplinary:

 

Public Health: Example themes: Covid-19, healthy buildings, healthy cities, environmental psychology, walkable cities, design 4 life, sick building syndrome, accessible design….

Transport, Infrastructure & Urban Management: Example themes: Urban regeneration, city and regional planning, integrated transportation, soft mobility, the economies of cities, urban sprawl, managing growth….

Sustainability + Resilience: Example themes: Strategic retreat, urban heat islands, resilient cities, net zero energy buildings, the carbon footprint of the building industry, resource use and cities….

Architecture, Landscape, Urban Design: Example themes: Architectural design, landscapes and cities, urban design, retrofitting and renovating buildings, public space design, walkable cities….

Technologies + Medias: Example themes: Smart Cities, digital infrastructures, the internet of things, digital equality, privacy and connectedness, ubiquitous computing, big data and city space….

Sociology, Geography, Anthropology: Example themes: affordable housing, community sustainability, participatory planning, migration, urbanization, forced displacement, cultural traditions….

Public Services: Example themes: Community health services, housing provision, access to education, sanitation and environmental health, design and planning for an aging population….

Urban Economics: Example themes: City boosterism, enterprise zones, global cities, affordable housing, urban poverty, urban regeneration, private-public partnerships, development….

Societies, Communities, Cultures: Example themes: Right to the city, race and the city, defensible space, criminology, gentrification, participatory planning, land rights, indigenous communities….

MoreLess

Livable Cities

Research + Publication Program

Livable Cities is part of the AMPS Critical Futures research program that encompasses a range of interconnected issues from infrastructure, public health and transport to communities, architectural design, heritage and sustainability. In each of these areas AMPS supports the research of academics focused on the full range of interdisciplinary issues that affect how and where we live.

Overview:

Cities – Critical Futures reflects the UN World Urbanization Prospects reflecting concerns about growing urbanisation, informal development, urban sprawl, regeneration and the future of post-industrial cities across Europe and North America. Health – Critical Futures engages with global issues such as healthy cities, walkable neighbourhoods, accessible design, design for life, Covid-19 and public spaces, ‘sick building’ research and more. Housing – Critical Futures responds to a global ‘crisis’ in affordable housing provision. It examines dichotomies such as the chronic shortage of affordable housing in London, the displacement of long-standing communities in urbanising China and civil unrest around housing in São Paulo.

Collaborations:

The UN Habitat Programme, The Royal Institute of British Architects, The Commission of Architecture and the Built Environment, The Faculty of Public Health, UCL Press, Libri Publishing, Vernon Press, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Atelier Herman Hertzberger, The National Housing Federation, the Pubic Health Film Society, the homelessness charity Shelter, Habitat for Humanity and multiple universities internationally.  More details.

MoreLess

Publications

Books, Journal, Proceedings

The Critical Futures program draws upon the AMPS publication network based on tje journal and book series with several international publishing houses: Routledge Taylor & Francis | UCL Press | Intellect Books | Libri Publishing | Vernon Press | Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

In addition, the work of researchers is shared through the AMPS Academic YouTube channel, its series of international conferences and its associated  proceedings publications.

Sample Books

  • Serving the Marginalized through Design Education. (ed) Steven B. Webber. Routledge Taylor & Francis, 2025
  • Place-Based Sustainability: Research and Design Extending Pathways for Ecological Stewardship. (ed) Jason Montgomery. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2023
  • Participatory Practice in Space, Place, and Service Design: Questions of Access, Engagement and Creative Experience. (ed) Kelly L. Anderson. Vernon Press, 2022
  • Urban Histories in Practice: Morphologies and Memory. (eds) Jeffrey Kruth & Steven Rugare, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2021
  • The Complex City: Social and Built Approaches and Methods. (ed) Caroline Donnellan. Vernon Press, 2021
  • Critical Practices in Architecture: The Unexamined. (eds) Jon Bean, Susannah Dickinson, Aletheia Ida. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020
  • Designing for Health & Wellbeing: Home, City, Society. (eds) Matthew Jones, Louis Rice, Fidel Meraz. Vernon Press, 2019
  • From Conflict to Inclusion in Housing . (eds) Graham Cairns, Georgios Artopoulos, Kirsten Day. UCL Press, 2017
  • Housing the Future – Alternative Approaches for Tomorrow. (eds) Rachel Isaac-Menard and Graham Potts. Libri Publishing, 2016
  • Design for a Complex World: Challenges in Practice and Education. (ed) Graham Cairns. Libri Publishing, 2015

 

Sample Journal Special Issues

  • Housing & Society. Architecture_MPS ISSN, 2050-9006. Vol 28 Nos.1-4. 2024
  • The City & Public Health. Architecture_MPS ISSN, 2050-9006. Vol 24 Nos.1-4. 2023
  • Decolonising the Curriculum. Architecture_MPS ISSN, 2050-9006. Vol 21 Nos.1-4. 2022
  • Art, Space and Activism. Architecture_MPS ISSN, 2050-9006. Vol 20 Nos.1-4. 2021
  • Re-Design Teaching Design. Architecture_MPS ISSN, 2050-9006. Vol 18 Nos.1-4. 2020.

.

Sample Conferences

  • Cities, Culture, People & Place – Livable Cities Lisbon, Portugal. Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE). 9-11 July, 2025
  • Livable Cities – London. London, United Kingdom. City University of London. 28-30 June, 2024
  • Local Culture – Global Spaces. Virtual. University of Melbourne, Louisiana State University, Chinese University of Hong Kong. 05-07 Dec, 2023
  • Cultures, Communities and Design. Calgary, Canada. University of Calgary. 28-30 June, 2022
  • Cities in a Changing World: Questions Of Culture, Climate And Design. Virtual. City Tech, New York. 16-18 June, 2021
  • The City and Complexity – Life, Design and Commerce in the Built Environment. Virtual. City-University of London. 17-19 June, 2020
  • Alternatives to the Present – Sociology, Development & Planning. Cleveland, USA. Kent State University. 01-02 November, 2018

 

Books | Journal | Proceedings | YouTube | Conferences

MoreLess

Abstract Submissions

Click the button below to submit your abstract.

Fee: $420 USD  –  Queries: info@amps-research.com

 

Conferences | Books | Journal | Proceedings | Videos