City Hall Talk #3: Urbanism in Times of War and Crisis

Friday, May 1, 2026
5:00pm to 8:00pm

Tickets are under $50

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Organized by: Michael Janz

May
1

In this keynote, Mikael Colville-Andersen draws on his urbanist observations about pandemic response and from living and volunteering in Ukraine during the full-scale invasion to explore what cities reveal about themselves when systems fail. When the power goes out, when supply chains fracture, when missiles fly, it is not the smart dashboard that keeps a city running — it is the sidewalk, the bicycle, the local food network, the neighbour who knows your name.

Blending global observations from COVID-19 with front line dispatches from wartime Ukraine, this talk examines how urban life contracts, adapts and rebuilds under pressure. It challenges our reflex toward techno-optimism and argues that true resilience lies in human-scale design, walkability, proximity, and low-tech infrastructure that cannot crash or be hacked.

As the climate crisis accelerates, prevention alone is no longer enough. The urgent question is how we mitigate its impact on daily urban life. This keynote offers a clear, provocative framework for future-proofing our cities — not through complexity, but through fundamentals.

RSVP here and we will alert you when early-bird tickets become available.

SPONSORS AND PARTNERS REQUESTED

Our request is both a sponsorship but also a commitment to buy and distribute a tranche of tickets. If you can't give away the tickets, we will help distribute them to students and low-income attendees. $25/ticket early bird and we humbly request you help purchase in groups of 25. Room capacity is 500.

We want you to help us pull together an awesome crowd for this event. Contributions can be made to the University of Alberta to help cover the event and we are investigating if tax receipts can be provided.