As the world moves toward a global urbanism and centers issues of sustainability and international collaboration, cities are not so much planned as re-planned and reborn.

Qingyun Ma, dean of the USC School of Architecture, will moderate a conversation with city planners and administrators in which they discuss the present and future of urban planning in the flux of unpredictable, migrant forces and the shaping of iconic, livable cities. From the sprawl of Los Angeles to the expanding megacities of Mexico City and Shanghai, the juxtapositions of cultural, political and spatial differences will demonstrate how creative agents can transform a city physically and socially.