11/2/2025
It was my pleasure to yesterday deliver a lecture to masters students and faculty at the Norman Foster Foundation Institute in Madrid for the 2025 Programme on Sustainable Cities. Titled “City Management without City Management Tools”, my lecture described the challenges of managing a city with a rapidly growing population in the absence of mandates for land use planning and building permit issuance – the key development controls and urban management tools utilized by local government authorities in other countries.
Freetown is one of 3 Pilot Cities (Cape Town, South Africa and Melilla, Spain being the other two) for the 2025 Programme on Sustainable Cities. This collaboration provides an excellent opportunity for our city to benefit from the technical expertise of faculty and students (mainly post-graduate architects). As I travel back to Freetown today, I am accompanied by Olivia Poston, a faculty member in the Freetown Pilot City team who, together with another colleague, will spend the next few days in Freetown to undertake advance preparations for the visit of the full team in May.
