Within the framework of this conference series, the Alfred Herrhausen Society and the London School of Economics are working together with mayors, city planners, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and businesses as well as with researchers (including architects, sociologists, doctors, etc.), for example, from the universities of Hamburg, Vienna and Chicago, as well as from Harvard, the London School of Economics, the Brookings Institution in Washington DC, and the Sorbonne in Paris — just to name a few!

After the first conference in New York City in February 2005, conferences are also being held in Shanghai, London, Mexico City and Johannesburg. In addition, the problem of “shrinking cities” in Europe is to be examined during a conference in Halle an der Saale in Germany. Since 2004, the Alfred Herrhausen Society has been involved with the European Mayors Conference, which brings together mayors of large European cities to discuss – in practical terms and in small groups – the problems of their cities.

The objective of these two conference series is to form a global network of competence consisting of experts and research institutes that will continue to exist even after the conferences have concluded. Results and recommendations of the Urban Age conference series will be presented in Berlin in November 2006.

The Alfred Herrhausen Society’s Urban Age project is also an expression of the Deutsche Bank’s ongoing commitment to alleviating the economic and social problems of cities, for example, through its Citizenship UK team, the Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation and the Asia Foundation.