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What can we learn from villages and small towns for tomorrow’s sustainable cities?

Audience: Public Format: In Person
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This seminar explores what can we learn from historic villages and small towns on sustainability strategies.

Wednesday, 17 June 2026, 5.30pm to 6.30pm

The Global Centre on Healthcare and Urbanisation Public Seminar series brings together members of the public, researchers and practitioners interested and engaged in urban health issues. The principal aim of the series is to provoke debate and constructive action, linking current best practice in urban development with emerging areas of health research.

Historic villages and small towns largely evolved without formal sustainability strategies or policies, but what can we learn from their past to inform today’s cities? Gathering places, such as pubs or villages halls, and open public spaces in the form of village greens, and town squares underpin many aspects of what might be seen as traditional design, which are also central to sustainable urban development. The use of local resources and supply chains, with daily lives lived out in compact, walkable or wheelable, mixed-use, and relatively secure surroundings are often seen as hallmarks of rural villages or small market towns. This public seminar explores the positive, and potentially challenging, lessons to be learnt from these settlements.

This in-person event is free and open to all. Refreshments will be served from 17:00.
The seminar will begin at 17:30, followed by a drinks reception at 18:30.

Speaker(s): Pooja Ganatra (Senior Consultant at Buro Happold; Adjunct Lecturer, Heriot-Watt University), Lita Khazaka (Director at Studio LK Limited), Steven Bee (Chair, The Historic Towns and Villages Forum; Principal, Steven Bee Urban Counsel), Dr Fábio Zuker (Researcher, Pensi Institute (José Luiz Setúbal Foundation) and the University of São Paulo, GCHU Visiting Global Research Associate), Dr Shreya Banerjee (Assistant Professor, Dept. of Architecture and Regional Planning, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur)

Department: Kellogg College (College)

Organiser: GCHU

Host: Global Centre on Healthcare and Urbanisation

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