We are not asking only for abstracts. We are asking for urban stories: grounded experiences that help us understand the dominant narratives shaping contemporary cities, and open new narratives, new interpretations and new ways of seeing what is happening in urban life today.

What is the Forum about?

The Emerging Communities Forum 2026 will bring together urban planners, designers, researchers, public institutions, community actors, young and junior urban professionals, local innovators and international organisations to discuss one simple but urgent question:

How can we better understand, repair and reimagine the contemporary city?

This will not be a traditional conference based only on academic papers and formal presentations. The Forum is designed as a Human Library of Urban Stories: a place where lived experiences, community practices, professional knowledge and global urban questions meet.

Istanbul will be the host city and the living learning ground of the Forum. The event will be international in scope, but rooted in real urban places, local challenges and situated knowledge.

What kind of stories are we looking for?

Cities are not shaped only by plans, policies, markets and infrastructures. They are also shaped by stories: stories of growth and decline, inclusion and exclusion, conflict and coexistence, innovation and failure, care and abandonment, displacement and belonging.

Your story may come from a neighbourhood, a community, a public institution, a local initiative, a professional practice, a research project, a conflict, a regeneration process, a planning experience, a failure, or a fragile but meaningful urban innovation.

A story does not need to present a perfect solution. We also welcome stories of difficulty, contradiction and failure, if they can help others learn.

Stories can help us understand...

• how cities and territories are changing
• how communities respond to urban challenges
• how public spaces become places of conflict, care, identity or innovation
• how regeneration can improve urban life without producing exclusion
• how metropolitan development affects rural areas, food systems, mobility and natural resources
• how diversity, migration, ageing and cultural identity are reshaping cities
• how technology, data and platform economies are transforming urban life
• who benefits from current urban development models and who is left behind

How can you present your story?

Selected stories will be invited to the Forum in Istanbul and can be shared in the format that best fits the story:

• a short PowerPoint presentation
• a video
• a spoken story
• drawings or visual material
• a poster
• maps, images or other creative formats

The important point is not the format. The important point is the story, the learning and the dialogue it can generate.

Publication outputs

All accepted stories will be included in the official Forum Book of Proceedings. The strongest and most inspiring stories will also be invited to be further developed for a dedicated Congress publication, structured around the main themes of the Forum.

The four content containers

The Forum is organised around three main thematic containers and one cross-cutting lens. The first three containers structure the main programme. The fourth cuts across the whole Forum and asks a fundamental question: who benefits from the contemporary city, who is exposed, who is displaced, and who is not heard?

1. Territories of Urban Change

Sustainable development across cities, regions and metropolitan systems

Cities are not isolated objects. They are part of wider territories, flows, economies, landscapes and ecological systems.

Today, a city is at the same time a local place, a metropolitan system, a regional actor and a global node. It attracts people, capital, knowledge and opportunities. But it also consumes land, water, energy, food and ecological resources that often come from far beyond its administrative borders.

This container invites stories that help us rethink what sustainable urban and territorial development means today. It asks how cities can grow, adapt and transform without breaking the territorial systems that support them.

We are looking for stories that help us understand how cities can act responsibly as territorial actors: not only as engines of growth, but also as stewards of the regions, hinterlands and communities that make urban life possible.

In the context of Istanbul Master Plan, this theme can be linked to Istanbul’s role as both a metropolitan system and a territorial actor. The plan should consider not only the city’s internal growth, but also its wider relationships with regional landscapes, ecological systems, resource flows, infrastructure networks and surrounding settlements. This perspective supports a more responsible planning approach, where Istanbul’s development is guided by the need to protect the territorial systems that sustain urban life.

Possible stories may address:

• urban-rural relations and new territorial linkages
• metropolitan governance and planning beyond administrative borders
• adaptive and flexible approaches to territorial planning and governance
• food systems, agriculture, local production and short supply chains
• mobility and accessibility across urban, metropolitan and regional scales
• ecological systems, land consumption and resource use
• shrinking cities, depopulation and territorial fragility
• energy transitions and the territorial impacts of energy choices
• cooperation between cities, regions, hinterlands and communities
• territorial justice and the unequal distribution of the benefits and burdens of urban development

Main question: How can urban development reconnect city growth, territorial resources and social equity? - How can megacities such as Istanbul thrive without undermining the regions, ecosystems and communities beyond their borders?

2. Mending Urban Life

Regeneration, circular systems and community-based urban innovation

Urban life is not only transformed by large projects, masterplans and investments. It is also transformed every day by smaller acts of care, repair, reuse, adaptation and community action.

Many cities today are facing deep fractures: abandoned spaces, fragile local economies, unaffordable neighbourhoods, shrinking populations, gentrification, weakened public spaces, social isolation and loss of trust. At the same time, many communities are already inventing practical ways to repair urban life from within.

Mending urban life means more than physical regeneration. It means repairing the relationship between people and places. It means transforming spaces into meaningful places. It means bringing back services, uses, economies, social bonds and public value where urban life has become fragile or fragmented.

This theme also asks us to rethink circularity. Circular economy is not only about recycling materials or reducing waste. It can also be about circular social value, local production, shared resources, repair cultures, proximity economies and neighbourhood-based innovation.

In the Istanbul Master Plan, this theme can be linked to a more place-based understanding of urban transformation. Beyond large-scale investments and spatial decisions, the plan can support everyday practices of care, repair, reuse and community action that strengthen neighbourhood life. In this sense, circularity becomes not only an environmental principle, but also a social strategy for rebuilding local economies, public value and the relationship between people and places.

Possible stories may address:

• urban regeneration and adaptive reuse
• abandoned buildings, public space and neighbourhood transformation
• circular economy beyond economics: reuse, repair, care and local value
• community-led innovation and civic initiatives
• local production, makers, repair cultures and new urban economies
• shrinking cities and economic relaunch strategies
• gentrification, inequalities and exclusion
• everyday services, proximity, civic spaces and neighbourhood infrastructure
• how public space becomes a place of encounter, conflict, care or identity

Main question: How can communities, institutions and local economies repair and regenerate urban life from within? - How can megacities such as Istanbul balance large-scale regeneration with neighborhood development and circular city approaches rooted in everyday life?

3. Coexistence by Design

Diversity, trust, conflict prevention and intelligent urban governance

Cities are places of difference. They bring together people of different ages, cultures, religions, incomes, memories, lifestyles and expectations. This diversity can be one of the greatest strengths of urban life. But it can also become a source of tension if it is not recognised, mediated and governed.

Many contemporary cities are becoming more multicultural, more intergenerational and more socially complex. Some are ageing. Others are growing quickly. Many are receiving migrants, dealing with housing pressures, negotiating contested public spaces, and facing new forms of cultural, social and political polarisation.

Coexistence does not happen automatically. It must be built. This container invites stories about how cities can prevent conflict, create trust and reopen dialogue between different communities, generations and urban actors.

Heritage is central here, but not as a nostalgic object. Tangible and intangible heritage can help communities connect past, present and future. It can support identity, memory and belonging. But it can also become contested, commercialised or exclusionary.

This container also includes the question of intelligent governance. Data, AI and digital tools should not mean control from above. They should improve the public capacity to listen, understand, mediate, anticipate and act in the public interest.

In the context of Istanbul Master Plan, this theme can be linked to the need to plan Istanbul as a city of coexistence, diversity and shared belonging. The discussion can address social complexity, migration, ageing, housing pressure and contested public spaces not only as demographic issues, but as core questions of spatial justice and governance. By connecting heritage, participation, public space and intelligent governance, the Master Plan can support a city that strengthens trust, protects collective memory and enables different communities to live together more fairly.

Possible stories may address:

• diversity management and multicultural urban life
• migration, ageing and intergenerational relations
• conflict prevention, mediation and urban diplomacy
• public space as a place of encounter, tension or negotiation
• diversity as a source of creativity, innovation and collective intelligence
• tangible and intangible heritage as a resource for contemporary communities
• democratic governance, civic participation, trust-building and shared belonging 
• AI, data and digital tools used responsibly for public interest
• new instruments to support dialogue between communities, institutions and urban actors

Main question: How can cities design coexistence, prevent conflict and govern diversity intelligently? - How can megacities turn diversity into a source of creativity, trust and shared belonging?

4. Urban Futures for All

A cross-cutting lens on justice, vulnerability and the right to belong

This fourth container is not a separate silo. It is a lens that cuts across the whole Forum.

It asks one essential question: who benefits from the current model of urban development, and who pays the price?

Every city produces opportunities. But every city also produces vulnerabilities. Some people gain access to housing, mobility, services, safety, digital tools, public space and decision-making. Others are displaced, priced out, overexposed, silenced, monitored or excluded.

This lens invites us to look at all Forum themes through justice, affordability, vulnerability and rights. It is about the right to remain in the city, not only the right to access it.

It also asks how platform economies, short-term rentals, delivery systems, digital labour, surveillance technologies, data extraction and corporate smart-city models are reshaping urban life. Urban intelligence should not become urban extraction. Smart cities should not only be smart for corporations. They should be fair, democratic and accountable to the people who live in them.

In the context of Istanbul Master Plan, this lens can be linked to the need to evaluate urban development through justice, vulnerability and the right to belong. The discussion can question who benefits from Istanbul’s growth and who faces displacement, exclusion, affordability pressures or unequal access to services, mobility, housing and public space. By integrating this perspective, the Master Plan can support a fairer, more accountable and rights-based approach to urban intelligence, digital systems and metropolitan development.

Possible stories may address:

• housing affordability and the right to remain
• displacement, gentrification and loss of belonging
• urban poverty and unequal access to services
• vulnerable groups and leave no one behind approaches
• gender-responsive and safe urban environments
• public space conflicts and unequal access to the city
• platform economies and their impact on urban life
• data justice, surveillance, data pollution and non-extractive knowledge production
• community-based alternatives for fairer digital and urban governance
• participatory decision-making and inclusive urban governance

Main question: How can urban futures become fairer, more democratic and more inclusive for all? - How can megacities such as Istanbul create the conditions for a good life for all?