Cities in the Time of Corona
Joint Virtual Roundtable
Tel-Aviv University & the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Our Participants
Dr. Saswata Bandyopadhyay
Faculty of Planning, CEPT University, Ahmedabad
BIO
Dr. Saswata Bandyopadhyay, is an Urban Planning professional with advanced qualifications in Infrastructure Planning and Management, and his doctoral research on Climate resilient urban development in emerging economies. He is presently working as a Professor at the Faculty of Planning, CEPT University, Ahmedabad, India.
Prof. Saswat has over 24 years of experience in the Urban Development sector with a focus on City Development Planning and Resilient Urban development framework in South Asia. Saswat has spearheaded several Pan-Asia pilot research initiatives such as Country Enabling Environment (CEE) report for Asia, Localization of SDGs in Asia Pacific and ADB Green Cities Toolkit amongst others. Saswat has been also been involved in preparation as well as appraisals of several city and comprehensive development plans across various regions of India, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and China.
Prof. Eyal Ben-Dor
Dep. of Geography and the Human Environment, Tel Aviv University
BIO
Eyal Ben-Dor is Head of the Remote Sensing Laboratory at Tel Aviv University (RSL-TAU), the leading group in Israel for imaging spectroscopy (IS), soil spectroscopy and remote sensing applications dedicated for soil mapping and environmental monitoring. The RSL is expert in field and airborne campaigns in national and international levels and has gained significant experience to that end in many projects. The IS technology is also used by the RSL-TAU to investigate issues in medicine, veterinary, food security, civil engineering and agriculture. The RSL-TAU is responsible for more than 200 scientific papers in scientific proceedings, peer review journals and chapter books . Four patents in the IS direction for veterinary, civil engineering, soil science and contamination application are also the yield of the RSL-TAU.
The areas of his academic interest include: Hyperspectral remote sensing of the earth; soil spectroscopy; developing applications in many disciplines (medicine, veterinary, civil engineering, precise agriculture); generating Soil Spectral Library for the Mediterranean countries; Bilateral projects with Czech Republic (CGS), Germany (GFZ), Greece (i-BEC), Italy (CNR) and EC (EUFAR, EO-MINERS and GEO-CRADEL)
ABSTRACT
The potential of hyperspectral remote sensing technology to monitor the urban environment
Hyperspectral remote sensing (HRS) is an emerging technology in the field of remote sensing that attracts the attention of many old and new users. The technology was first developed for geological application by NASA and today it covers areas such as: vegetation monitoring, water management, atmosphere detection, ecological monitoring civilian engineering and lately also urban monitoring. The basis of this technology is the utilization of the interaction of the passive electromagnetic radiation with matter in high spectral resolution domain. Due to the many narrow electromagnetic frequencies within the HSR sensors, it enables the detection of targets and phenomenon in an innovative way that other remote sensing means cannot do. In this short lecture we will demonstrate the capability of this technology to monitor the urban environment. Some recent examples will be given to open the audience appetite.
Prof. Itzhak Benenson
Dep. of Geography and the Human Environment, Tel Aviv University
BIO
Itzhak Benenson is a Professor of Human Geography at the Department of Geography and the Human Environment in Tel Aviv University and the Head of the Geosimulation and Spatial Analysis Laboratory. The areas of his academic interest include: Geosimulation and spatial analysis of urban and regional phenomena; modeling of urban residential dynamics; long-term impact of local and regional plans; public transport and parking in the city; vehicle-pedestrian interactions and road accidents; spatial BIG DATA analysis; urban mobility.
ABSTRACT
Big Spatial Data and Urban Modeling
Data revolution of the 21st century brings in rich sets of spatially explicit high-resolution data on urban infrastructure, population and institutions. These data come from the multiple sources and at a different pace - population and land-use surveys and censuses, mobile phone data, public transport smartcards, financial transactions, CCTV, and many others. New data give raise to the new generation of urban dynamic models that can be employed for simulating possible development paths of specific urban components and even entire cities.
In my lecture I will present the examples of operational merge between the big urban data and high-resolution spatially explicit models of human mobility. For this purpose, I analyze high-resolution datasets on Israeli population, land-use, transportation and individual mobility available from the Israeli Mapping Center, Central Statistical Bureau, Ministry of Transport and mobile phone companies. These data serve as a background for simulating various aspects of urban traffic and transportation, nowadays and in the future.
Prof. Lucien Gilles Benguigui
Dep. of Physics, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
BIO
Lucien Gilles Benguigui is a physicist, an educator and a researcher. His main topics of research are Condensed Matter & Materials Physics. His achievements include patents for liquid filtration. Grantee, Israel - United States Bi National Science Foundation 1985-1987; Israel Academy of Sciences, 2002-2004. He is a member of the Israeli Physical Society and the author of several text books on statistical mechanics and physics.
ABSTRACT
Some remarks on global migration network and the COVID 19 | Idan Porat & Lucien Benguigui
We studied the global world migration by mean of the network theory in considering the links between countries. A link exists if there is immigration or/and emigration between two countries. Our sample of 168 countries can be divided into two groups: group A, contains mainly the developed countries, concerns about 17% of the world countries. Furthermore, it is characterized by the large number of countries that are linked to this group (between 100 and 160). The countries that are linked are not only those of the group B (83% of the countries) but also those of the entire group A itself. Group B is characterized by lower numbers of links (mean 35) and is mainly related to the group A and secondly to countries of the group B itself. The network of countries has a very particular property: if one picks at random two countries (whatever the group) there is always a third country linked to the two first countries. This phenomenon has contributed to a “tiny world” of global migration. The global migration network topology may reflect few migration phenomena such as "south-south migration" and local migration clusters. It may also reflect other global phenomena such as the corona virus outbreak in China and its global distribution. When COVID 19 outbreak in China, its global distribution followed the topology of China’s migration network. China’s migration patterns are defined in our study as group B country, its migration links are mainly local (East Asia) and towards group A countries.
Prof. Benguiguiwill be participating but will not present this work.
Prof. Yishai Blank
Tel-Aviv University Faculty of Law
BIO
Yishai Blank is Professor of Law at Tel-Aviv University Faculty of Law, and the Faculty’s Chair of the Graduate Studies Program. Between 2011-2014 he served as the Vice Dean for Academic Affairs. Yishai’s areas of research and teaching include Local Government Law, Administrative Law, Global Cities, Urban Legal Policy, Law and Secularism, and Legal Theory.
Professor Blank obtained his LL.B. and an additional B.A in Philosophy (both magna cum laude) from Tel-Aviv University. He clerked for the Chief Justice of the Israeli Supreme Court, Aharon Barak, and practiced law in the leading law firm I. Gornitzky & Co. Professor Blank continued his studies at Harvard Law School, where he was a Byse Fellowship recipient, and where he received his LL.M. in 1999 and his S.J.D. in 2002. He was a member of the Young Scholars in the Humanities and Social Sciences Forum of the Israeli Academy of Science and Humanities, and he is a two-times recipient of prestigious fellowship from the Israeli Science Foundation (ISF).
Professor Blank was a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, Cornell Law School, University of Toronto Law School, Queen’s University Law School, Sciences Po Law School (Paris), Brown University, University of Hamburg, and the Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law (Spain). Professor Blank’s works have been published in law journals in the United States and in Israel, including Stanford Law Review, Cornell Law Review, North Carolina Law Review, Harvard Journal of International Law, Harvard Civil-Rights Civil-Liberties Law Review, Fordham Urban Law Journal, the Urban Lawyer, Tel-Aviv University Law Review, and Columbia Journal of Transnational Law.
Dr. Vered Blass
Porter School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Tel Aviv University
BIO
Vered Blass is a Senior Lecturer at the Porter School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Tel Aviv University. She established and currently leads the Industrial Ecology research lab in Tel Aviv University. Her research interests are studying the sustainability consequences of changing consumption and production patterns using life cycle thinking and a variety of tools and methods in the following domains: Mobility, Closed-loop Supply Chains, secondary markets, circular economy, recycling and reuse, Product-service systems and sharing economy.
ABSTRACT
Environmental behavior before and in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic: insights from Israeli survey and implications for future research
The COVID-19 epidemic has created a sudden, rapid and unprecedented change in the behavior of the general population in almost every possible aspect including work, mobility and consumption patterns. Recent studies suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic can actually serve as a turning point for changing behavior and taking responsible actions. In order for that to happen, a deeper understanding of: 1. intentions to change pro-environmental behavior and 2. changes in environmental attitudes and awareness within the population is needed. In this talk we will report results of a survey that was done in Israel during March and April 2020. We compare past and intended future behavior, environmental attitudes, and the impact of providing information on the relation of the COVID19, climate and environmental crises taking into account financial loss due to the COIVD19 crisis and other social demographic aspects. We provide insights on four topics including reduction in consumption, mobility, recycling , and eco-activism including the factors that affect the willingness to increase the intensity of the behavior and the impact of knowledge as a pre-acquired internal source compared to the information we randomly provided. We use the initial findings to craft ideas for future research and discuss opportunities for collaboration.
Dr. Efrat Blumenfeld-Lieberthal
David Azrieli School of Architecture, Tel Aviv University
BIO
Efrat Blumenfeld-Lieberthal is a Senior Lecturer at the David Azrieli School of Architecture at the Tel Aviv University. She received her B.Arch, MA and PhD at the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. She worked as a post-doctorate researcher at the Center for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA), University College London and as a Porter Fellow at the Environmental Simulation Laboratory (ESLab), Tel Aviv University. Her research interests are applying theories of complexity to urban environments; urban morphology; size distribution of entities in complex systems; and complex networks in urban systems.
ABSTRACT
Covid-19 and urban planning & design | Anat Goldman & Efrat Blumenfeld-Lieberthal
In March 2020, Israel's population as well as the population of most of the Western world went into home isolation in order to decrease the rate of Covid-19 I (C-19) infection. As part of the government's instructions, people were allowed to leave their homes for short periods and only to areas in a radius of no more than 100 meters from their homes. As a result, new urban phenomena emerged; balconies, vacant lots, local gardens, rooftops, front yards, and even backyards became attractive locations for the urban population who felt suffocated in their apartments. Also, many post-industrial firms stopped working in their offices and many people found themselves working from home. As a result of the cities being empty from people, wildlife invaded the urban streets (for example warthogs in Haifa) which is an example of the new balance between people and nature in the cities.
Although the full isolation has ended a few months ago, it appears that C-19 has left its mark on urban life around the world and in Israel specifically. In this talk, we will illuminate creative ways of handling the local isolation, and try to identify some ways that cities can adjust to the new reality caused by C-19, and how these adjustments might affect urban planning and design.
Dr. David Burg
Ohalo Academic College
BIO
David Burg is a senior researcher at the Eastern R&D Institute and senior lecturer at Ohalo Academic College. His research focuses on mathematical modeling of social phenomena using modern analytical tools, especially the underlying processes of urban dynamics. He works with Prof Itzhak Omer (Tel Aviv University) and Prof Jesse Ausubel (Rockefeller University, New York).
Mr. Raj Cherubal
BIO
Raj Cherubal is CEO of Chennai Smart City Limited (CSCL). Smart Cities is a flagship initiative of the GoI, being implemented by the Government of Tamil Nadu and Greater Chennai Corporation, to improve infrastructure and services of the city, and thereby improve the quality of life of all its citizens. Raj was Director-Projects for Chennai City Connect (CCC), a platform for industry and civic organisations, envisions vibrant Indian cities that deliver world-class quality of life, infrastructure and services. He is interested in improving urban governance, urban quality of life. He has worked on sustainable transportation and urban planning, pedestrianisation, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and integrated, multi-modal public transportation, solid waste management, restoration of urban water bodies, sustainable financing of urban infrastructure, redevelopment of business district and regional planning. He has worked to promote decentralisation and urban good governance. Also to promote economic freedom for entrepreneurs, especially poor like street vendors and others in the informal sector and for their recognition as profit seeking entrepreneurs. He holds a M.S. in Physics from the University of Louisville and a M.S. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has worked in the software industry in areas like computational physics, visualisation, telecom and finance.
Prof. Karen Coelho
Madras Institute of Development Studies
BIO
Karen Coelho is an Associate Professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS) in Chennai. Her Ph.D in anthropology from the University of Arizona, Tucson, in 2004 was on an ethnographic study of Chennai’s municipal water services. Her current work spans various themes in urban anthropology including critical examinations of urban infrastructure (including housing and resettlement schemes), and urban ecologies. She has co-edited a book called Participolis: Consent and Contention in Neoliberal Urban India (2013, Routledge India). She serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Review of Urban Affairs of the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) of India and is an International Corresponding Editor for Urban Studies. She teaches modules on Urban Studies, History of Development Thought, and Qualitative Methods at MIDS and elsewhere.
ABSTRACT
Governing collectivities and congregations in the Southern post-covid city
The talk will reflect on the challenges of restoring the agglomerative character and collective life that undergirds and animates the urban. It is clear that lockdowns and isolation strategies can be at best short-term containment measures, buying time to think through more appropriate responses. How can cities of the global South find ways (spatial, institutional, social) to re-establish the public, congregative economies and socialities that form their lifeblood?
Arch. Anat Goldman
David Azrieli School of Architecture, Tel Aviv University
BIO
Anat Goldman is an Architect (B.Arch) and holds an M.A degree from Tel Aviv University, Department of Geography and Human Environment (Summa Cum Laude).
Currently a lecturer in TAU School of Architecture on Urban Planning Issues, and completing her Ph.D. dissertation, supervised by Prof J. Portugali and Arch. Dr. E. Blumenfeld-Liberthal, titled "Patterns of Morphological Changes of Construction Forms in Tel Aviv", examining urban change processes and their expression in buildings facades, inside the urban core for the last 100 years.
ABSTRACT
Covid-19 and urban planning & design | Anat Goldman & Efrat Blumenfeld-Lieberthal
In March 2020, Israel's population as well as the population of most of the Western world went into home isolation in order to decrease the rate of Covid-19 I (C-19) infection. As part of the government's instructions, people were allowed to leave their homes for short periods and only to areas in a radius of no more than 100 meters from their homes. As a result, new urban phenomena emerged; balconies, vacant lots, local gardens, rooftops, front yards, and even backyards became attractive locations for the urban population who felt suffocated in their apartments. Also, many post-industrial firms stopped working in their offices and many people found themselves working from home. As a result of the cities being empty from people, wildlife invaded the urban streets (for example warthogs in Haifa) which is an example of the new balance between people and nature in the cities.
Although the full isolation has ended a few months ago, it appears that C-19 has left its mark on urban life around the world and in Israel specifically. In this talk, we will illuminate creative ways of handling the local isolation, and try to identify some ways that cities can adjust to the new reality caused by C-19, and how these adjustments might affect urban planning and design.
Prof. Hermann Haken
Theoretical physics, University of Stuttgart
BIO
Hermann Haken is a Professor of mathematics and physics
who is well known for his works in a large number of topics, laser physics, atomic physics and quantum field theory among them. Following his interpretation of the laser principles as selforganization of non-equilibrium systems, he developed the theory of Synergetics, of which He is highly recognized. Over the years Prof. Haken collaborated widely with Prof. Juval Portugali, applying his theories of selforganization and Synergetics to the study of cities as complex systems, urban dynamics and human cognitive processes related to urban environments.
ABSTRACT
A synergetic cities’ view on Cities in Time of Corona | Juval Portugali & Hermann Haken
Synergetic Cities is the title of a new book [1] that studies cities as hybrid complex systems with
specific emphasize on the interplay between information, fluctuations, steady states and phase
transitions. Looking at the corona event from this perspective, the talk will elaborate on the
following issues:
• COVID-19 as an order parameter that describes and prescribes the dynamics of cities;
• the latent instability of the global system of cities;
• explicit instabilities – the pandemic and the crises of democracy and governance;
• the insight that can be gained by USM, based as they are on big data and small data.
Ref.
[1] Haken H, Portugali J (2020/1). Synergetic cities: Information, Steady state and phase transition. Implications to urban scaling, smart cities and planning. Springer. Heidelberg.
Prof. Haken will be participating but will not present this work.
Ms. K Saraswathi
Madras Chamber of Commerce & Industry (MCCI)
BIO
Ms Saraswathi is the Secretary General of Madras Chamber of Commerce & Industry(MCCI) which is a 184 years old chamber and one of the oldest Chambers of commerce in the country. She has the honour of being the first woman secretary General of MCCI.
She started her career as a Banker and worked in different capacities and in various areas of operation, particularly specialising in SMe financing. She later headed a German collaborated SME support centre in Chennai and the said project was selected by the German Science Organisation to participate in the Expo 2000 Hannover as a model case study for “Information Services using Technology for Thinking the Future of Micro Enterprises”. She also worked for UK Trade and Investment, the Commercial arm of British Deputy High Commission as a Senior Trade and Investment Adviser and was also coordinating the Science & Innovation & Research activities between the UK & India.
She has a post graduate degree in Mathematical Economics and has an MBA with specialisation in Operations Management and she is also a qualified certified Associate Member of Indian Institute of Bankers (CAIIB). She is currently pursuing her PhD in women entrepreneurship.
She is One of the three awardees of Woman of Excellence in Leadership for 2006 by JC international – Chennai Royal.
She is heading the Secretariat of the Madras Chamber for the past 10 years and has been instrumental in launching many new initiatives including a very unique Sustainable Chennai Forum in the year 2011, with the objective of creating a business case for sustainability focussing on areas like Energy, water, waste management, Transport and urban Greening. The Chamber won a Responsible Business Management organisation award in 2017 awarded jointly by the Govt of India and Small Industries Development Bank of India.
Mr. Vikram Kapur
Tourism, Culture and Religious Endowments Department, Government of Tamil Nadu
BIO
Vikram Kapur is a 1988 batch officer of the Indian Administrative Service, born on the Tamil Nadu State Cadre. He had his schooling in Springdales School, New Delhi from where he passed out in 1984 and was ranked 8th in the All India merit list. Thereafter, he graduated in Physics from St. Stephens College, Delhi and did his post-graduation in Public Policy and Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, New York. During his service, Vikram Kapur has worked in various capacities, including that of District Collector, Dindigul, Executive Director, Tea Board, Government of India, MD & CEO, Tamil Nadu Urban Development Fund, Member Secretary, Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority, Chairman, Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, Principal Secretary, Industries & Energy Departments, Government of Tamil Nadu, Commissioner, Municipal Corporation of Chennai, Managing Director of Chennai Metrowater and Chairman & Managing Director, TANGEDCO & Chairman, TANTRANSCO, the state power utilities of the state of Tamil Nadu. Currently he is posted as Additional Chief Secretary, Tourism, Culture and Religious Endowments Department, Government of Tamil Nadu. He specializes in the areas of urban affairs and power systems.
ABSTRACT
Chennai governance and the World Bank project
Key points for discussion:
1. Difficulties of governing Chennai (due to current institutional differences).
2. What we learnt during the Covid-19 response.
3. How projects like the upcoming World Bank project might help fill the gaps.
Mr. S Krishnan, IAS
Tamil Nadu Newsprint and Papers Limited (TNPL)
BIO
Thiru S Krishnan, I.A.S., belongs to 1989 batch of Indian Administrative Service. He has 30 years of service in various departments of Government of Tamil Nadu. Earlier, Thiru S Krishnan, I.A.S., was director on the Board of Directors of TNPL from 15.09.2011 to 25.7.2013. Currently he holds the position of Additional Chief Secretary to Government, Finance Department, Government of Tamilnadu.
B.A (Hons), M.A (Economics)
ABSTRACT
Chennai governance and the World Bank project
Key points for discussion:
1. Difficulties of governing Chennai (due to current institutional differences).
2. What we learnt during the Covid-19 response.
3. How projects like the upcoming World Bank project might help fill the gaps.
Prof. Hanna Lerner
Department of f Political Science, Tel Aviv University
BIO
Hanna Lerner is Associate Professor in Political Science at Tel Aviv University. Her research focuses on comparative constitution making, religion and politics, judicial politics and democracy and on global governance and international labor rights in transnational supply chains.
She received her BA in philosophy and history and her MA in philosophy (magna cum laude) from Tel-Aviv University. She earned her MPhil and PhD in political science from Columbia University, New York.
Prof. Lerner is the author of Making Constitutions in Deeply Divided Societies (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and editor of Global Justice and International Labour rights (with Yossi Dahan and Faina Milman-Sivan, Cambridge University Press, 2016), Constitution Writing, Religion and Democracy (with Aslı U. Bali, Cambridge University Press, 2017) and Comparative Constitution Making (with David Landau, Edward Elgar 2019). Her articles appeared in numerous books and in journals including Law and Social Inquiry, World Politics, Michigan Journal of International Law, Theoretical Inquiries in Law, Constellations, Nations and Nationalism, Journal of Social Philosophy, Cornell International Law Journal. She had also co-edited a special issue of American Behavioral Scientist on religion and constitutionalism.
In 2014 she convened a research group on constitutionalism, religion and human rights at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF), Bielefeld University, Germany, together with Mirjam Künkler and Shylashri Shankar. Prof. Lerner also held visiting fellowships at Princeton University and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Before joining Tel Aviv University she served as deputy director of the School of Educational Leadership at the Mandel Institute in Jerusalem. She also has vast experience as a journalist and radio news editor, and was the founding-director of the news department of Radio Darom (Radio South).
Dr. Lia Levin
School of Social Work, Tel Aviv University
BIO
Dr. Lia Levin is a senior faculty member at Tel Aviv University's School of Social Work. In her research and practice she deals with issues pertaining to social justice, access to it and ways it can be translated into benefiting policies in Western welfare states.
Dr. Levin is a licensed social worker, and received her BSW, MSW (Summa Cum Laude) and Ph.D. degrees from Tel Aviv University. In 2012-2013, she completed her post-doctoral fellowship at King College London's Centre for Public Policy Research, and is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Centre since 2013.
To date, Dr. Levin has published several articles, book chapters and other texts on social policy, poverty, practice in social work and teaching social work. She supervises research students on these topics. Dr. Levin has received several research grants and awards, including a grant from the Israeli Science Foundation (2017).
In 2010, 2012 and 2017, Dr. Levin received the award for excellence in teaching from the Rector of Tel Aviv University. In 2012 (junior faculty) and then again in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 (senior faculty) she was a member of "Club 100", a list of Tel Aviv University's highest ranked lecturers.
Since 2014, Dr. Levin is the Academic Director of Tel Aviv University's Policy Practice Clinic. In this capacity, in 2017 she received a research grant reward from Israel's Council for Higher Education.
Dr. Levin has been the Head of Tel Aviv University's School of Social Work Bachelor's Degree Program since 2016.
Besides her academic endeavors, Dr. Levin is a social activist, working with individuals living in extreme poverty, acting as consultant to governmental and non-governmental agencies and conducting forums on the subjects of civic participation, society, social exclusion, social justice and participatory democracy.
Dr. Yuval Livnat
Tel-Aviv University Faculty of Law
BIO
Dr. Livnat received his J.S.D. (Doctorate of the Science of Law) from Columbia Law School, where he was also a Fellow of the Columbia Public Policy Consortium.
He served as the legal advisor of Kav LaOved (Workers' Hotline) during 2003-2007. During these years he litigated extensively for migrant workers' rights and was involved in two precedential Supreme Court decisions (HCJ 11437/05 on a female migrant worker's right to give birth and stay in Israel with her infants until the full term of her guest worker visa, and HCJ 1105/06 on health rights of migrant workers who stay in Israel for long periods.) He was also very involved in the Anti-Trafficking legislation proceedings of 2006.
In 2008, Livnat joined the Tel Aviv University Refugee Rights Clinical Program, and started representing asylum seekers and refugees, while also being in charge of the program's academic component. Concomitantly, during 2013-2018 he served as the Director of the Israeli AIDS Task Force, and during 2014-2017 as the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Law & Social Change.
Today Livnat serves as the academic supervisor of the Refugee Rights Clinic, as a member of the Editorial Advisory Panel member of Michigan University Law School's RefLaw project, and as a research fellow of Tafflab ERC project.
Dr. Ashwin Mahalingam
Department of Civil Engineering, IIT-Madras
BIO
Dr. Ashwin Mahalingam is a Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at IIT-Madras. Ashwin received his B.Tech in Civil engineering from IIT-Madras and and a M.S and PhD from Stanford University in Construction Engineering and Management. In between he helped start up an internet based company in the USA called All Star Fleet, aimed at providing asset management services for construction companies. Ashwin's research has focused on the planning, management and governance of infrastructure projects. Previous work focused on Public Private Partnerships (PPP) in Infrastructure planning and management, and the the use of digital technology to improve decision making at both project and regional levels. Ashwin is also a co-founder of Okapi Advisory Services Pvt. Ltd and serves as a Director on the Board.
ABSTRACT
Dr. Mahalingam is a contributor to 2 projects that will be presentations at the Roundtable:
1. Mr. Bharath Palavalli's presentation
2. Dr. Parama Roy's presentation
Ms. Rani Mandelbaum
David Azrieli School of Architecture, Tel Aviv University
BIO
Rani Mandelbaum is a PhD student of Urban Planning at The School of Architecture in Tel Aviv University and at The Department of Planning, Design and Architectural Technology in Sapienza University of Rome. She works as an Urban Planning consultant for the Southern district of The Israeli Planning Administration.
ABSTRACT
From Crisis to Crisis: The impact of Current Crisis Discourses on Planning Policy and Planning Democracy in Israel | Rani Mandelbaum, Talia Margalit & Barbara Pizzo
In the last decade noticeable changes occurred in Israeli planning discourse as it became filled with crisis and fear motifs. At the same time, Israeli planning experienced changes that are characterized by strengthening of neoliberal economic forces and rescaling of planning powers.
Crises episodes are associated with neoliberal times. 'Crisis' is a call for immediate action. It shines a spotlight on a specific issue and can be used to promote positive as well as negative changes. However, Jessop (2013) claim power-elites select 'Imagined Recoveries' that suit their goals, from an array of possible solutions. Thus, the crisis discourse is often used as a tool by the power-elites for advancing meaningful policy change.
This lecture will offer findings from an ongoing research project that examines the impact of crisis and fear discourses on urban planning systems and their influence on the designing of space. It will focus on how the current crisis and fear discourses in planning appear in different fields of discourses, and on how it is changing planning policy and planning democracy. The lecture will offer a possible, however not very optimistic, point of view on how the Covid-19 discourse might influence the Israeli planning world.
Dr. Talia Margalit
David Azrieli School of Architecture, Tel Aviv University
BIO
Vered Blass is a Senior Lecturer at the Porter School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Tel Aviv University. She established and currently leads the Industrial Ecology research lab in Tel Aviv University. Her research interests are studying the sustainability consequences of changing consumption and production patterns using life cycle thinking and a variety of tools and methods in the following domains: Mobility, Closed-loop Supply Chains, secondary markets, circular economy, recycling and reuse, Product-service systems and sharing economy.
ABSTRACT
From Crisis to Crisis: The impact of Current Crisis Discourses on Planning Policy and Planning Democracy in Israel | Rani Mandelbaum, Talia Margalit & Barbara Pizzo
In the last decade noticeable changes occurred in Israeli planning discourse as it became filled with crisis and fear motifs. At the same time, Israeli planning experienced changes that are characterized by strengthening of neoliberal economic forces and rescaling of planning powers.
Crises episodes are associated with neoliberal times. 'Crisis' is a call for immediate action. It shines a spotlight on a specific issue and can be used to promote positive as well as negative changes. However, Jessop (2013) claim power-elites select 'Imagined Recoveries' that suit their goals, from an array of possible solutions. Thus, the crisis discourse is often used as a tool by the power-elites for advancing meaningful policy change.
This lecture will offer findings from an ongoing research project that examines the impact of crisis and fear discourses on urban planning systems and their influence on the designing of space. It will focus on how the current crisis and fear discourses in planning appear in different fields of discourses, and on how it is changing planning policy and planning democracy. The lecture will offer a possible, however not very optimistic, point of view on how the Covid-19 discourse might influence the Israeli planning world.
Dr. Margalit will be participating but will not present this work.
Dr. Ilit Oppenheim
Faculty of Engineering, Tel Aviv University
BIO
Ilit Oppenheim is the head of the Shlomo Schmelzer Institute for Smart Transportation at Tel Aviv University. She holds a B.Sc. In Aeronautical Engineering from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, M.Sc. and PhD in Human Factors Engineering, Industrial Engineering and Management from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Ilit has a unique experience that combines engineering, management and research, with an emphasis on models of human factor behavior and personalization in various contexts.
ABSTRACT
Smart Transportation Revolution - Pre and Post COVID19
We are in the midst of the fourth industrial revolution, which is characterized by emerging technologies that combine physical, biological and digital worlds. The transportation arena, as a significant part of this revolution, is facing changes that are expected to occur in the coming years. The smart transportation and mobility world includes various aspects of shared, electrical, connected and autonomous vehicles, infrastructure and interfaces. Mobility as a service (MaaS) is pretty new concept, which shifts the urban mobility perception. The idea is using a single app to plan, access and pay for various transport modes, allowing the users to select their preferred mode from a variety of options. Critical transportation challenges and practical problems facing society today must be addressed to improve humanity daily life and specifically during Global Crises (i.e., increasing road safety, increasing accessibility for different populations, reducing traffic congestion, and protecting the environment). it is ironic that during a revolution that aims to unite and connect worlds, an epidemic breaks out that mainly separates and isolates a person from his family, friends, work, and the world. I will talk about the smart transportation revolution pre Covid19 and how it might be affected by it? Should we recalculate its route?
Mr. Bharath Palavalli
BIO
Bharath is a researcher who works to improve public policy processes using complexity science. He researches and designs tools such as games and simulations to help make better public policy. He has worked in the areas of poverty, transport, energy, disaster management and urban planning. He is the Co-Founder of Fields of View, a non-profit research group in Bangalore. Previously, he has designed agent-based simulation frameworks, games for safety and learning, and has worked in the areas of infrastructure policy, disaster management, and poverty. He was elected as an Ashoka Fellow in 2018 for his work in designing tools and methods to allow different stakeholders to collaborate on creating relevant public policy.
ABSTRACT
The relationship between policymakers and modelers
The talk will focus on the relationship between policymakers and modelers to establish and unpack three interrelated issues of trade-offs over efficiency, process over event and inclusivity.
Mr. Ophir Paz-Pines
Department of Public Policy, Tel Aviv University
BIO
Ophir Pines Paz is Head of the Institute for Local Government at Tel Aviv University. As the founder of the Institute he has also initiated a division in the Public Policy Masters' Course addressing the relationships between the central and the local governments. The Institute has five main fields of operation: Academic teaching; research and policy papers; professional training and seminars; projects and urban entrepreneurship; and the Local Government Leadership Forum. Ophir is a Fellow at the I.O.P Kennedy school, Harvard University. He is Formerly Israel’s Minister of the Interior, Minister of Science, Culture and Sports and Chair of Knesset Committees for the Interior and Constitution, Law and Justice.
ABSTRACT
Central government and local governments’ dynamics in Israel: a transition from hierarchical relations to cooperation and co-dependence
The central government as an executive authority is becoming less potent and serves more as a regulator and a subsidizer. On the other hand, local governments are becoming stronger. They enjoy independent income, professional management, innovation and governance. During the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Israeli central government imposed lockdown and flattened the infection’s curve. This action created an unprecedented economic crisis with unemployment rates of 20%. Amid the second wave, as infection cases soar, the government averts another lockdown in light of public objection. In addition, the Ministry of Health’s ability to mitigate the pandemic is limited. Initially, the Israeli Covid-19 project manager chose the IDF (Israel defense force) for the task of flattening the curve.
I had another input. Earlier this August, the project manager accepted my suggestion to ‘privatize’ the national curve to 255 curves, so that each local government will tend to its own curve. Now, local authorities workers are being trained to perform epidemiological investigations. Success will mean a full return to normality, while failure will bring local lockdown until the curve flattens. This outline is challenging for several reasons. (1) As a large central organization, the IDF is easier to coordinate with; (2) coordination with 255 different local governors is challenging; (3) Unlike the IDF, local governments are not an inherent part of the central government. Therefore, entrusting them with authority and budgets is more complex. That being said, chances are higher for the local governments to succeed where the IFD still struggles. Local authorities are closer to their public and know their communities on many levels. The central government has made an important step to flatten the curve by embracing the abilities of local governments. Now we shall wait and see what will be the outcomes.
Dr. Idan Porat
Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
BIO
Dr. Idan Porat is a senior research colleague at the Center for Urban and Regional Studies and a lecturer at the Urban and Regional Planning Program in the Technion. He holds B.A. in environmental studies from the Technion; MSc and PhD (with excellence) in Urban and regional planning from the Technion. He is one of the founders of the Spatial Capital Lab and the Spatial Planning & Design Lab, teaches a Metropolitan studio and GIS advisor. His research deals with spatial planning policy development and urban and regional strategic planning based on local capital assets and Multi-Parametric GIS analysis. He has over 10 years of practical experience in urban and regional planning.
ABSTRACT
Some remarks on global migration network and the COVID 19 | Idan Porat & Lucien Benguigui
We studied the global world migration by mean of the network theory in considering the links between countries. A link exists if there is immigration or/and emigration between two countries. Our sample of 168 countries can be divided into two groups: group A, contains mainly the developed countries, concerns about 17% of the world countries. Furthermore, it is characterized by the large number of countries that are linked to this group (between 100 and 160). The countries that are linked are not only those of the group B (83% of the countries) but also those of the entire group A itself. Group B is characterized by lower numbers of links (mean 35) and is mainly related to the group A and secondly to countries of the group B itself. The network of countries has a very particular property: if one picks at random two countries (whatever the group) there is always a third country linked to the two first countries. This phenomenon has contributed to a “tiny world” of global migration. The global migration network topology may reflect few migration phenomena such as "south-south migration" and local migration clusters. It may also reflect other global phenomena such as the corona virus outbreak in China and its global distribution. When COVID 19 outbreak in China, its global distribution followed the topology of China’s migration network. China’s migration patterns are defined in our study as group B country, its migration links are mainly local (East Asia) and towards group A countries.
Prof. Juval Portugali
Department of Geography and the Human Environment Tel Aviv University
BIO
Juval Portugali is a Professor of Human Geography at the Department of Geography and the Human Environment, Tel Aviv University. He is the Head of the City-Center - a research center for cities and urbanism. He is the former head of the Environmental Simulation Laboratory (ESLab) and of the Environment, Society and Planning Graduate Program in Tel Aviv University. He received his B.A. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, M.A. from the Technion and received a London University PhD from The London School of Economics and Political sciences. His research integrates complexity and self-organization theories, environmental-spatial cognition, urban dynamics and planning in modern and ancient periods.
ABSTRACT
A synergetic cities’ view on Cities in Time of Corona | Juval Portugali & Hermann Haken
Synergetic Cities is the title of a new book [1] that studies cities as hybrid complex systems with
specific emphasize on the interplay between information, fluctuations, steady states and phase
transitions. Looking at the corona event from this perspective, the talk will elaborate on the
following issues:
• COVID-19 as an order parameter that describes and prescribes the dynamics of cities;
• the latent instability of the global system of cities;
• explicit instabilities – the pandemic and the crises of democracy and governance;
• the insight that can be gained by USM, based as they are on big data and small data.
Ref.
[1] Haken H, Portugali J (2020/1). Synergetic cities: Information, Steady state and phase transition. Implications to urban scaling, smart cities and planning. Springer. Heidelberg.
Mr. Manu K. Poulose
Department of Civil Engineering, IIT-Madras
BIO
Manu K. Poulose is a doctoral scholar at Indian Institute of Technology Madras under the guidance of Dr. Ashwin Mahalingam. He is pursuing his research in policy incoherence in urban planning. He had graduated from IIT Madras in Civil Engineering in 2016, and had worked with Citicorp and an engineering consultancy firm before commencing his PhD research. His other areas of interest are Public Private Partnerships and project flexibility.
Mr. Amit Prothi
BIO
Amit Prothi is MD (Asia Pacific) at the Global Resilient Cities Network, a grantee of the Rockefeller Foundation, that collaborates with nearly 100 global cities to protect vulnerable communities from climate change and other physical, social and economic challenges. He is trained in regional planning, landscape architecture and architecture from universities including MIT, UMass Amherst (USA) and SPA (India). In a career spanning 22 years, and across 12 countries, Amit has worked for clients including The World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and numerous government and private sector entities. Recently, he was responsible for managing the preparation of Chennai’s Resilience Strategy. Amit is currently based in Singapore.
Prof. Tal Raviv
Department of industrial engineering, Tel Aviv University
BIO
Tal Raviv is an associate professor of industrial engineering. He holds a BA from the Eitan Berglas School of Economics, Tel Aviv University (1993), an MBA from the Recanati School of Business, Tel Aviv University (1997), and a PhD in Operations Research from the William Davidson Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa (2003). He spent two years (2004-2006) as a postdoctoral fellow in the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He joined the department of industrial engineering at Tel Aviv University in 2006. Tal published many papers in the operations research literature and served as an advisor for start-up companies. His current primary research interest is in transportation and logistics with a focus on smart transportation and sustainable logistics, and he is co-heading the transportation and logistics lab in the faculty of engineering. Tal serves as the head of the Shlomo Shmeltzer institute for smart transportation in Tel Aviv University.
Mr. Aromar Revi
Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS)
BIO
Aromar Revi is the Director of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) India’s prospective interdisciplinary national University and proposed Institution of Eminence, focused on urbanisation. Over a decade, he has built IIHS into one of the world’s leading education, research, training, advisory and implementation- support institution, focusing on the multi-dimensional challenges and opportunities of sustainable urbanisation. He is an alumnus of IIT-Delhi and the Law and Management schools of the University of Delhi. He is a global practice and thought leader, and educator with 35 years of interdisciplinary experience in sustainable development, public policy and governance, human settlements, global environmental and technological change.
ABSTRACT
Data collection and new models of cities
The talk will discuss how there is a whole set of micro-dynamics/behaviors that we need to include in our models of cities, which traditional models have largely ignored and how advances in data collection technologies and data analytics might make this possible.
Dr. Parama Roy
IIT-Madras
BIO
Dr. Parama Roy is the Lead Researcher at Okapi Research & Advisory. She also holds an Adjunct Faculty position at IIT-Madras. Parama is interested in the multifaceted and complex nature of urbanization process and its social and environmental implications. Her work is motivated by principles of socio-environmental justice and sustainable development and guided by political-economic/political-ecological theories, and mixed research methodologies. Parama completed her PhD from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and has worked at Georgia State University (USA) and University of Copenhagen (Denmark). Recently, she headed Okapi’s work to develop the Chennai Resilience Strategy supported by Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities program.
ABSTRACT
Cities, Disasters and Vulnerable Groups
Disaster Management in India has largely focused on post disaster relief – this on the one hand has been the case because of the notion of disasters as one-time events that are different from the normal, while on the other hand it has led to disorganized and uncoordinated relief response in reaction to disaster events by a range of government and nongovernmental organizations. With the increase in frequency of different types of disasters across Indian cities, a gradual paradigm shift can be noticed towards Disaster Risk Reduction (that focuses on preparedness and mitigation) and community driven risk reduction (that highlights the need for participation and coordination) which is yet to fully translate into action.
Using the experience of the most vulnerable groups including those living in informal settlements, resettlement colonies and the homeless in Chennai city, I will discuss how the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to think about disasters and disaster vulnerability as a process rather than a single event. This in its turn offers lessons for looking beyond the immediate cause and effect of disasters and recognize the more ingrained social-political conditions that increase vulnerability of populations to disasters.
Also, examining the current relief efforts specifically targeted towards the vulnerable groups I will discuss how the pandemic has underscored the need for coordination across various public departments and between public and private/civic agencies to ensure more effective management of the current situation. There are both good and bad examples that can be drawn from Chennai to showcase coordination and lack of the same between government and NGOs. In conclusion I would like to suggest that as we begin to accept “the new normal” in the wake of Covid-19, cities must incorporate a continued, well-coordinated, and cross sectoral disaster risk reduction plan i.e. particularly sensitive to the needs of the urban poor.
Dr. Jessica Seddon
Chadha Center for Global India, Princeton University
BIO
Jessica Seddon is Visiting Fellow, Chadha Center for Global India at Princeton University. She has worked as a researcher, strategist and leader on institutional design initiatives for more than two decades in the United States, Latin America, and South Asia. Her work focuses on the interaction between technology change and institutional environments to identify and seize new opportunities for solving complex social challenges. She is particularly interested in ways in which innovations in how we detect and process information shape the way individuals and institutions respond to environmental change. Jessica was most recently Director of Integrated Urban Strategy at World Resources Institute (WRI), where she continues to serve as Global Lead for Air Quality. Prior to joining WRI, she founded and led Okapi, an institutional design and strategy consultancy incubated by IIT Madras. Jessica earned her Ph.D. from Stanford University Graduate School of Business and her B.A. from Harvard University.
ABSTRACT
Governance of complex systems
Opening points
We all agree that it’s worth the trouble to understand how to better govern – how to assert individual and collective human agency to change a system’s dynamics – the complex systems that are cities. No need to cover this much.
There is a difference between planning and governance. The science of cities, and advances in modeling complex systems in order to experiment with different interventions and thus determine the use of sovereign authority to shape the city is fine, but not enough – we need to figure out how reasonably shape the many cities that aren’t well characterized or modeled, to manage the politics that result from agents in the system having agency and preferences, to deal with and harness multiple sources of authority – not just government, and to have the institutional design be dynamic enough to respond to changing knowledge.
Development of an governance research agenda – actually, a more proposative institutional design agenda.
5-6 reasons that complex systems are stressful for the current practice of governance,
Some early signs of constructive response – social innovations, in the sense of new configurations of relationships with the aim of generating socially beneficial outcomes - to that stress.
Concluding thoughts: what can we do, as people at universities who also interact a lot with messy real world problems and try to do our best, to figure out how to get better at governing complex systems so our species has a shot at surviving on earth.
Prof. Hila Shamir
Tel-Aviv University Faculty of Law