PHILADELPHIA -- The Penn Institute for Urban Research at the University of Pennsylvania will host “The Future of Cities: The World, The Nation, Philadelphia,” a free, public discussion between Philadelphia officials and experts on the city’s bold new vision for sustainable planning and infrastructure investment, at 6 p.m. Thursday, May 14. The event will be at the Academy of Natural Sciences.

Philadelphia’s plans will be presented by Mayor Michael Nutter, along with Andrew Altman, deputy mayor for planning and economic development, and Alan Greenberger, executive director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.

Bruce Katz, vice president of the Brookings Institution and founding director of its Metropolitan Policy Program, and Ricky Burdett, chief adviser on architecture and urbanism for the Olympic Delivery Authority, director of Urban Age Programme and professor in architecture and urbanism at the London School of Economics and Political Science, will provide comment.

Made possible by support from the William Penn Foundation, this discussion is part of the Penn IUR lecture series, Philadelphia 360, which explores the economic and planning imperatives for building a sustainable, vibrant, 21st-century Philadelphia.

Penn IUR, in partnership with PennDesign and PennPraxis, plans to host events during the summer and fall to further examine the role of federal policy and investment in sustainable city-building investments and strategies.

Additional information on this and other events is available at www.upenn.edu/penniur or by contacting Amy Montgomery at amylmo@upenn.edu or 215-573-8386. RSVPs can be to penniur@pobox.upenn.edu.