How it all started? 

The idea and necessity of an ongoing independent platform for facilitating knowledge exchange in this field emerged during a successful international conference called Urban Change in Iran, which was hosted by the Bartlett Development Planning Unit at University College London (UCL), 8-9 November 2012. This unprecedented conference was branded as a landmark event and received recognition by the UNESCO Director General, Ms Irina Bokova. Following the conference, the principal organiser of the event, Dr Farnaz Arefian, initiated discussions to explore the possibility of an ongoing project to connect knowledge at international and regional level on cities/countries along the historic Silk Roads. Farnaz is the founding director of the Silk Cities, which its Beta version was launched on 11 February 2014.

For more information on the first conference please visit the conference website at www.urban-change-in-iran.org.  A book based on updated versions of selected papers has been published by Springer. Please visit the publisher page for Urban Change in Iran, Stories of Rooted Histories and Ever-accelerating Developments.

Partnership:  The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, DPU, at University College London, UCL, kindly supports the 'Silk Cities' initiative. Silk Cities has strategic and operational academic partnership with The Bartlett DPU. Visit our affiliated microsite at DPU http://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/dpu/silk-cities). Silk Cities is currently, exploring other strategic academic and practice based partnerships. Contact us to explore it further.