Silk Cities

Silk Cities is an independent hub, aiming to bridge the gap between local and global efforts, academia and practice, and local and diaspora experts, and bridges fragmented urban domains. Being inherently interdisciplinary, Silk Cities performs under the overarching and overlapping spheres of resilience and disaster management, urban development, communities’ cultural assets and social well-being. We introduce real-world, yet under-explored contextual and global issues, then take intellectual leadership to initiate frontier projects such as international conferences, bringing together dispersed knowledge and ideas, and setting new directions for research, policy, and practice. Silk Cities focus on knowledge exchange, research, raising awareness, and publication. Through intellectual capacity building and creating international visibility of those under-presented local researchers and working professionals, Silk Cities strives to inspire, empower, and make a positive impact. Through its organic growth, over individual researchers and practitioners directly participated in our international conferences, workshops, and other projects. The impact of Silk Cities projects spread globally through its reference books and open-access eBooks, free online lectures and Then and Now resources. By using the narrative of the urban Silk Roads, we tap into the notions of connectivity and exchange, and historical presence that is reflected in city characteristics and urban life, and complex global challenges. With an initial geographic focus on challenges countries in the Middle East and Central Asia face, the geographic coverage of Silk Cities reaches out further to other cities, regions and countries that are prone to similar issues and fosters international exchange. Visit for details of our projects and activities.