[...]The conference aspired to bring together architects, urban designers, landscape designers, urban planners, urban geographers, urban economists, urban sociologists and demographers, to investigate new challenges; and it aimed to become an international forum of transaction of ideas on cities. This goal appears becoming a reality since the conference has gained strong interest of academics and researchers in many countries and regions around the world; Greece and the Balkans, south Europe and Mediterranean countries, northwest Europe, Middle East and Asia, Far East, North America, Latin America and Africa. A total of about 450 abstracts and 300 papers were submitted in the conference; and among them, there have been about 160 Greek academics and researchers. This indicates that despite shortage of research funds, salary cuts, and broken morale, university teachers and researchers in Greek state universities try hard to keep a high-level academic status. The strong interest for this conference allows us to have thoughts about organising a series of Changing Cities conferences every two years, spatially hosted on different Greek islands. This may offer to the conference participants a chance to visit, experience, and enjoy various attractive places in the Aegean Sea and the Ionian Sea [...] (Forward)