How are cities transforming? How are we, as Greens, going to lead and shape that transformation? The Green Institute will be exploring these very questions and more at their upcoming national conference.
BY TIM HOLLO
Green Institute Executive Director
he Green Institute’s 2023 national conference is on in Meanjin/Brisbane on August 18 and 19, and we’re after your big ideas!
Our Call for Proposals (and ticketing) is now open!
Home to half of humanity as well as countless other species, cities are complex ecosystems of many kinds, from ghettoised, car-based wastelands and food deserts to interconnected homes of social cohesion and urban ecology. Today, they are changing rapidly, both for better and for worse. As the climate destabilises and old political, social and economic certainties collapse, these changes will accelerate as we tumble towards what I like to call “the end of the world as we know it”.
How are cities transforming? How are we, as Greens, going to lead and shape that transformation, on the ground in our communities, in councils, through our campaigning, and through parliaments?
Our word “politics” comes from the Ancient Greek word polis – city-state. And from ancient Athens to Occupy, Brisbane’s Greenslide to pandemic mutual aid, cities have always been a key site for collective innovation, exploration and reorganisation.
It’s this spirit of reorganisation that we need to harness at this pivotal point in history.
We must transform our cities. And our cities must be sites of transformation for us and our politics. How are we negotiating and shaping this crucial urban transformation? What are we doing well? What do we need to do better?
With the seeds of change all around us, what do we need to do to move from creating alternatives around the margins towards cultivating the radical, transformative system change that will help us make sure it is the end of the world as we know it, and not actually the end of the world?
e’re talking about democratic transformation and deep organising; urban ecologies and agriculture; planning and managing cities in the climate crisis; NIMBYism (not in my backyard), YIMBYism (yes in my backyard), and doing density well; sharing, repairing, and reclaiming privatised space for the public; social cohesion, anti-racism, alternatives to policing, and decolonising this perhaps most colonial of institutions.
What are you doing on the ground in the city? What are your ideas for bringing people and projects, communities and cultures, together to drive transformation?
Bring your experience, your expertise, your ideas and your curiosity. We need to share, learn from each other, and work out together how to make our politics as powerful and transformative as possible!
The full Call For Proposals is up on our website here. Make sure to check it out soon and start discussing with colleagues, friends and co-conspirators, because we need your proposals by COB on June 16, please, so we can weave them together into an exciting program for you!
And, whether or not you want to present in any way, please get your tickets ASAP – places are strictly limited in the venue at Griffith University South Bank campus. [NB: there will be online capacity, but it will be limited to streaming plenary sessions and a separate set of online only workshops.]
As usual, we’ve made tickets available on a graded pricing scale to ensure that it is affordable for everyone while still meeting our costs and helping the Green Institute keep delivering exciting projects and programs for you. Please consider paying it forward, if you can, to help others take part.
I look forward to seeing you there!
Hero image: Pexels.