Three Decades of Post-socialist Transition. Conference Programme

With 2019 marking three decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989-2019) and the collapse of state-socialism in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the team at the “Urban Morphosis Lab” research group decided to utilize this unique opportunity to reflect and discuss on the ways in which the processes and outcomes of post-socialist transition have impacted the built environment of the CEE cities. That thought led us to organise the inaugural International Conference on Cities and Change, with the focus being on topics related to restructuring of planning and design frameworks, infrastructure, architecture, and urban space in CEE context. After receiving more than 125 abstracts from across Europe, the conference brought together leading academics, researchers and practitioners in fifteen sessions, who discussed the major factors that guided this process, such as–the shift to neoliberal system of urban governance and planning; strategic and innovative urban development approaches and practices for adapting to socio-political change; democratization of planning and design practices; privatization and commodification of urban spaces; globalization and diversification of urban culture; and transformation of urban memory, heritage and identity. Through these insights and debates, the conference increased the diversity of geographic perspectives in research on urban transformation, brought forth the spatial dimensions of transitioning processes, and, finally, produced new empirical insights, theoretical concepts and analytical methods for better understanding the complexity of the processes of urban change in wider international contexts.