About the Conference
Hosted by the Department of Coevolution of Land Use and Urbanisation @ the MPI-GEA – the Connecting Urbanism Across Time & Space conference will cover a diverse array of methods, regions, and time-periods and seeks to connect systematic, quantitative observations from the deep past to present planning and future predictions.
Researchers, as well as policy makers and stakeholders, from a variety of different disciplinary and regional backgrounds will be brought together in question-oriented sessions to present the current available data.
Held at the Normannenhaus, Jena, the event takes place between 27 – 29 October, 2025.
Program
Mon 27 October
| 09:00–09:15 | Introduction to the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology | |
| 09:15–09:30 | Introduction to the Department of Coevolution of Land Use and Urbanisation | |
Session 1 — How diverse are urban phenomena? |
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| 09:30–10:00 | Complex, dense societies are not uniquely human: the natural, built, and social environments created by insect colonies, and how their organization contradicts or mirrors ours | Anna Dornhaus — Arizona University |
| 10:00–10:30 | Life on Mars — A space engineer’s perspective on what could be in 50+ years | Christiane Heinicke — ZARM, University of Bremen |
| 10:30–11:00 | Drivers of convergence and divergence among early cities | Michael Smith — Arizona State University |
| 11:00–11:30 | Coffee | |
| 11:30–12:00 | The Village at scale: Trypillia Megasites and the Margins of the Urban Spectrum | Rene Ohlrau — Kiel University |
| 12:00–12:30 | Urban Amazons: Diverse Forms of Tropical Urbanism in Amazonia | José Iriarte — University of Exeter |
| 12:30–13:00 | Rethinking Low-Density Urbanism at Angkor | Sarah Klassen — University of Colorado, Boulder |
| 13:00–13:30 | Urban metabolism redux | Matthew Gandy — University of Cambridge |
| 13:30–14:15 | Lunch | |
Session 2 — How has the process of urbanisation operated over multiple timescales in terms of individual cities and the global urban landscape? |
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| 14:15–14:45 | Scaling Cities in China: Patterns, Drivers, and Implications | Lulu Song — Chinese Academy of Sciences |
| 14:45–15:15 | Shards and Sutures: Traces of State Building in the Upper Euphrates | Zeynep Kezer — Newcastle University |
| 15:15–15:45 | Pre-colonial traditions in African urbanism | Shadreck Chirikure — University of Oxford |
| 15:45–16:15 | Coffee | |
| 16:15–16:45 | Urbanism, Governance, and Resilience: Tracing the Hydraulic Heritage of Sri Lanka’s Dry Zone | Wiebke Bebermeier — Freie Universität Berlin |
| 16:45–17:15 | China’s urbanisation: processes, operations and challenges | Fulong Wu — University College London |
| 17:15–17:45 | An evolutionary theory of cities | Manfred Laubichler — Arizona State University |
| 17:45–18:15 | Sinking under the weight of history? Water and urbanisation in Jakarta from the colonial to the postcolonial | Mikko Toivanen — University of Turku |
| 18:15–18:45 | Closing remarks and Discussion | |
| 18:45–19:45 | Dinner | |
Keynotes |
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| 19:45–20:15 | How can the urban past inform contemporary policy discussions? | José Lobo — Arizona State University |
| 20:15–20:45 | URBank — a new tool for comparative urbanism | Patrick Roberts & Christopher Carleton — MPI-GEA |
Tues 28 October
| 09:00–10:00 | Keynote (remote talk): Cities as transformative agents for global sustainability | Xuemei Bai, Australian National University |
| 10:00–10:30 | Coffee Break | — |
Session 3 – How have cities adapted to crises (climate change, warfare, economic change)? |
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| 10:30–11:00 | On the longevity of cities from the complexity perspective | Diego Rybski, Leibniz-Institut für ökologische Raumentwicklung e. V. |
| 11:00–11:30 | Megalithic City Walls as Answer to the Time of Crisis in Early Iron Age of the Southern Levant: The Case of Tell Ushayer | Dominik Bonatz, Freie Universität Berlin |
| 11:30–12:00 | The Ancestral Maya and a Millennium of Urban Water Management | Lisa Lucero, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
| 12:00–12:30 | Implications of land use change on food security in the City of Lusaka, Zambia | Garikai Membele — University of Zambia |
| 12:30–13:15 | Lunch | |
| 13:15–13:45 | (Remote talk) Tiny Gardens Everywhere: The Past and Present of Urban Self-Provisioning | Kate Brown — Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| 13:45–14:15 | Transforming Cities for Global Sustainability in the Anthropocene: Climate Adaptation Pathways | Xiaoling Zhang — IUE & HKU |
| 14:15–14:45 | Learning from past disasters for resilient urban futures | Simone Sandholz — UNU-EHS |
| 14:45–15:15 | Coffee | |
Session 4 — How often have cities moved, changed in size, or disappeared? |
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| 15:15–15:45 | Successes and failures of capital city relocation in premodern states | Dan Lawrence — Durham University |
| 15:45–16:15 | Urban Transformations in the Maya Lowlands: A Case Study from the Upper Belize River Valley |
Claire Ebert — University of Pittsburgh |
| 16:15–16:45 | (re)Location, (re)Location, (re)Location: Urban mobility in Mediaeval Sri Lanka | Keir Strickland — La Trobe University |
| 16:45–17:15 | Residential Density and Community Performance in the US Southwest | Scott Ortman — University of Colorado Boulder |
| 17:15–17:45 | The Longue-Durée Social and Regional History of Chinese Urban Infrastructural Repair and Disrepair | Hilde de Weerdt — Leuven University |
| 17:45–18:15 | ‘Between things that are no longer and things that are not yet’: Notes on Thabiso Sekgala | Bongani Kona — University of the Western Cape |
| 18:15–19:15 | Dinner | |
| 19:15–19:45 | (Remote talk) Mobility and sustainability in Indian mega-cities | Debolina Kundu — National Institute of Urban Affairs, India |
| 19:45–20:15 | Population churn and persistence | Iza Romanowska, Aarhus University |
| 20:15–20:45 | Closing remarks and discussion | |
Wed 29 October
Session 5 – How have urban supply chains and networks changed and what have been their various vulnerabilities? |
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| 09:00–09:30 | Cultural and Environmental Entanglements Shaped the Supply Chains and Networks of the Ancient World | Sarah Graff – Arizona State University |
| 09:30–10:00 | The City’s Carters: Transportation and the Transformation of Mexico City’s Urban Landscape in the 1600s | Tatiana Seijas – Rutgers University |
| 10:00–10:30 | Cities and empires in the Greco-Roman world | Arjan Zuiderhoek – Ghent University |
| 10:30–11:00 | Coffee | — |
| 11:00–11:30 | Building empire in high places: Inka and Spanish colonial approaches to urban supply chains | Di Hu – James Madison University |
| 11:30–12:00 | The Martian Mindset – when supply becomes difficult | Kirsten Tracht – University of Bremen |
| 12:00–13:00 | Lunch | — |
Session 6 – What different types of urban land use and environmental impacts have been observed in different socioeconomic and environmental contexts? |
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| 13:00–13:30 | Urban Beginnings: Mapping its formative phases in Mesopotamia | Stephanie Rost – City University of New York |
| 13:30–14:00 | Monte Albán and its Urban Development, history and environmental impact through time | Nelly Robles – INAH Oaxaca |
| 14:00–14:30 | Why Low-Density Settlements Matter: a problem of continuity | Roland Fletcher – The University of Sydney |
| 14:30–15:00 | Change, challenge, response and resilience in the past: Reconstructing the impact of pandemics and climate on settlements in Medieval England | Carenza Lewis – University of Lincoln |
| 15:00–15:30 | Coffee | — |
| 15:30–16:00 | Urban dynamics, soil health, and food security | Panos Kratimenos – University Munich |
| 16:00–16:30 | Making the sinking city: A study of land subsidence in coastal Java | Marie Belland – University of Amsterdam |
| 16:30–17:00 | Can Urban National Parks be an effective solutions to reduce air pollutants in metro cities? – Evidence from the city of Mumbai, India | Haripriya Gundimeda – IIT Bombay |
| 17:00–17:30 | Life and Death in the Urbicene: Uneven Socio-Ecological Urbanization in the Planetary City | Erik A. Swyngedouw – The University of Manchester |
| 17:30–18:00 | Discussion and closing remarks | — |
| 18:00–19:00 | Dinner | — |
| 19:00–20:00 | Keynote: Misunderstood Cities and Contradictions of Southeast Asia’s Urban Transitions | Rita Padawangi – Singapore University of Social Sciences |
Organisers
Travel Information
Venue
Normannenhaus Jena
Forstweg 12
07745 Jena
Germany
