Preparing Cities for Global Risks: a contribution to Lisbon’s 2020 Urban Planning Meeting
In 2020, as COVID-19 upended daily life, the Lisbon City Council convened the Encontro de Urbanismo 2020 — “COVID-19: Preparing Cities for Global Risks” — an eight-session cycle held between 6 July and 9 November 2020 at the Centro de Informação Urbana de Lisboa (CIUL). C-NAPSE founder João Carneiro took part in the fourth session.
The meeting was coordinated by Prof. João Ferrão (geographer, Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon), with co-coordinators Roberto Falanga and Carlos Liz. Its premise was deliberately broad: use the pandemic as a window onto the wider class of systemic global risks that — by their severity — can become genuinely existential, putting at stake forms of human and non-human existence as we know them today.
The city as a common good
Across the eight sessions, experts and citizens were invited to reflect on the meaning of COVID-19 from the perspective of the city — giving voice both to those who study it and to those who live it daily. The organisers built the debate around a clear value-based thread: a key idea, the city as a common good; a supreme value, biological life, individual and collective; and an ultimate aim, the city of good living.
That framing aligns closely with how C-NAPSE approaches innovation in the public sphere. Disruption is not only a threat to be managed; handled well, it is a moment to rethink systems and prepare for the next shock before it arrives. Preparing a city for global risks is, at heart, a strategic-foresight problem: reading weak signals early, stress-testing assumptions, and converting that understanding into concrete, fundable action across the short, medium and long term.
The conversation
The fourth session of the cycle, in which João Carneiro participated, was recorded in full and is available below.
From debate to record
In 2021 the coordinators published a bilingual synthesis report drawing together the scripts, testimonies and debates of all eight sessions. It is openly available in both Portuguese and English.
- Ferrão, J. (Coord.), Falanga, R., & Liz, C. (2021). Encontro de Urbanismo 2020. COVID-19 — Preparing Cities for Global Risks [Synthesis report]. Lisbon: Câmara Municipal de Lisboa / CIUL.
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