How does a sustainable community behave? Let's hear what ours is saying.

Home of the 2002 Winter Olympics, Salt Lake City has been recently ranked as one of the top five US cities in which to live for reasons ranging from hiking to public transportation, and healthcare costs to business opportunities.

On September 21, 2013, in collaboration with “the City 2.0,” we're bringing together urban advocates, visionaries, innovators, movers and shakers for a multi-disciplinary conversation about how to create a future for our city that's even more playful, more safe, more beautiful, and more healthy for everyone.

How will an upgraded Salt Lake City look, feel, move and thrive? Our speakers were handpicked to represent the primary themes that emerge as this conversation advances:

Discover: Cities teach us how to live with and learn from people totally unlike us. They teach us to draw on the past and push into the future, and to be entrepreneurial and resilient. No grades; just transformation. How can we model this in the classroom to prepare future generations to create, innovate, and continue to improve our city?

Evolve: Each city has an identity from the past which has shaped what it is now. How will we shape the unseen forces that influence what the city and its citizens will look like in the future? How do we create new paradigms as well as new systems?

Express: How and where can our city embrace both genuine expression and connection? Public art allows people to see themselves, their aspirations, and struggles reflected in the urban infrastructure. Cities are thus a canvas, albeit rarely a blank one.

Feed: What and how are we eating, and what does it say about what we value? Cities have experienced an explosion of interest in food justice all over the world in the last few years alone. We’re thinking more urgently and more intentionally about how our food is grown, shipped, prepared, and shared than ever before.

Heal: How do we create a personalized system of healthcare where individuals have access to ample education, providers, and resources to support each in his unique pursuit of optimal health?

Invest: Are we coming up with alternative and innovative opportunities for people to have ownership of their community? We need revolutionary methods of supporting entrepreneurs in the growth and development of their start-ups and provide opportunities to become entrepreneurial leaders for life.

Move: How do cities get people and goods from one place to another? We seldom think about how our daily transit plays a role in our expression of and connection to our city.

Re-purpose: Urban advocates have long struggled with the daunting but compelling challenge of finding ways to make housing both more green and dignifying. What innovations will allow us to use both new and previously existing materials to forge a new understanding of sustainable living?

Thrive: How do we weave these threads to produce the durable yet flexible tapestry of a sustainable and flourishing community?

Unite: How about using pooled resources to build our future city? Let’s talk about it.

*Photograph taken by Charles Uibel