Students to host Urban Innovation Symposium

The 9th annual Urban Innovation Symposium — an event run entirely by students from the Urban Planning and Policy Student Association (UPPSA) — will take place Jan. 25.

The event will be divided into a day session from 11:15 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. in 329 Student Center East Room, and an evening session from 4:30 p.m. to 9:45 p.m. at the National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th St.

The symposium aims to present diverse urban planning developments from across the Chicago area, which ultimately seek to solve problems affecting urban environments. Attendees will be exposed to lectures and panel discussions by experts in the field.

The Urban Innovation Symposium is a free event that is open to all students, faculty and staff. People who wish to attend the event must register online. Students from all majors and departments are encouraged to attend.

UPPSA is a student organization composed of urban planning and policy graduate students. The organization hosts an array of social and volunteer events, but its largest event of the year is the Urban Innovation Symposium.

“The Urban Innovation Symposium team has been incredible, especially our leaders, Andrew Brown, Hannah Bader, and Sandy Koo,” said Hunter Gillaspie UPPSA’s first-year student representative and member of the Urban Innovation Symposium committee. “We’re on track to have an event that continues to build on past success while also exploring a variety of emerging topics.”

The topics that will be discussed during the event include:

• Claiming Spaces: The Role of Public Art as Place-maker
• The Language of Environmental Justice
• Future of Co-ops
• Zoning, Land-use, & Affordable Housing
• Neighborhoods & Sustainable Design
• Transportation Equity.

“One of the great things about urban planning, as a profession but also in the department, is that it touches on every aspect of all the subjects a university can cover,” said Sandy Koo, Urban Innovation Symposium co-coordinator and urban planning and policy graduate student. “The topics for the event may seem so different, but they are all interwoven because they all affect each other. The way a city is planned and the nuances behind it actually affect everybody.”